| Summary: | We analyzed the differential processing of nouns and verbs in a lexical-decision task (LDT). Both nouns and verbs referred to dynamic or static situations. The characteristics of our material were specified at both the formal level (number of letters, number of orthographic neighbors, frequency and age of acquisition), and at the semantic level (dynamicity, imageability, number and strength of associations, number of meanings, context dependency). A hierarchical regression analysis indicated an effect of number of letters and, more importantly, enabled us to conclude that semantic effects were involved, in particular as a result of the contrast between the representations of static and dynamic situations. In contrast, imageability, a semantic factor that is sometimes claimed to account for the noun advantage in LDT, did not appear to be involved.
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