Corpora: Subjective familiarity and objective frequency counts

[Bruce Lambert]

Does anyone know of research examining the correlation between subjective
assessments of familiarity/frequency (i.e., how often do you see, hear,
read, write, speak this word?) and objective frequency counts (based on
large corpora)?

I know of one such paper by the psycholinguist Paul Luce (I will provide
the reference when I can find it again). Any other pointers or comments on
this issue are welcome.

My specific interest is in the relationship between the prescribing
frequency of specific drugs (drug names) and health professionals'
subjective familiarity with those same names. This kind of information is
very important in  psycholinguistic research, where the effects of word
frequency can be quite overpowering.

On a related note, I'd appreciate pointers to any corpus of
medical/pharmaceutical/nursing literature that might serve as the basis for
an empirical count of drug names in the professional or scientific press.

-bruce

Bruce L. Lambert, PhD
Department of Pharmacy Administration
University of Illinois at Chicago
833 S. Wood St. (M/C 871)
Chicago, IL 60612-7231

phone: 312-996-2411
fax: 312-996-0868