On the Processing of Printed Subject Index Entries During Searching

Reports a laboratory experiment in which verbalized tape‐recorded searches on five printed subject indexes reveal something of the linguistic processing that took place. Some 20% of the entries examined were changed grammatically, by word order change or function word supply, according to the linguistic form of the index concerned. Extracts from the search transcriptions are given, and the search processing modes of seeking, scanning, and screening are discussed.