1
|
Cai M, Liao X. The relationship between vocabulary depth knowledge, word reading, and reading comprehension in Chinese. J Exp Child Psychol 2024; 244:105951. [PMID: 38735223 DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2024.105951] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/30/2023] [Revised: 03/27/2024] [Accepted: 04/03/2024] [Indexed: 05/14/2024]
Abstract
Although vocabulary depth (VD) is recognized as a crucial factor in reading comprehension, the investigation of its role in reading comprehension remains insufficient. This study aimed to address two significant research gaps in this domain. First, empirical evidence is needed to explore the construct of VD knowledge, particularly within the Chinese language. Second, the underlying mechanism that connects VD and reading comprehension requires further clarification. In this study, a sample of 326 native Chinese students from Grade 4 participated in a comprehensive battery of tests assessing VD knowledge, word reading, and reading comprehension. Based on theoretical frameworks of VD knowledge, we measured six subtypes of VD knowledge: polysemy, collocation, word register, part-of-speech, semanticassociations, and homonyms. The results of factor analysis revealed that Chinese VD knowledge can be conceptualized as a two-factor construct, encompassing in-depth semantic knowledge (VD-meaning) and knowledge of word usage (VD-usage). Both VD-meaning and VD-usage demonstrated significant direct effects on reading comprehension, highlighting the critical role of VD in determining reading comprehension outcomes in Chinese. Furthermore, our findings indicated an indirect contribution of VD to reading comprehension, specifically through the mediating effect of word reading on the relationship between VD-meaning and reading comprehension. This study represents a pioneering empirical investigation that delved into the construct of VD in Chinese. In addition, we discuss the role of VD knowledge and its interaction with word reading in the context of Chinese reading comprehension, which could significantly enhance our understanding of the underlying mechanism that links vocabulary knowledge to reading comprehension.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mingjia Cai
- Department of Chinese Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong
| | - Xian Liao
- Department of Chinese Language Studies, The Education University of Hong Kong, Tai Po, N.T., Hong Kong.
| |
Collapse
|
2
|
Li L, Buxó-Lugo A, Jacobs CL, Slevc LR. Are lexical representations graded or discrete? Q J Exp Psychol (Hove) 2024; 77:909-923. [PMID: 37382107 DOI: 10.1177/17470218231187027] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/30/2023]
Abstract
Most research on mental lexical representations (lemmas) assumes they are discrete and correspond in number to a word's number of distinct meanings. Thus, homophones (bat), whose meanings are unrelated, have separate lemmas for each meaning (one for baseball bat, another for flying bat), whereas polysemes (paper), whose senses are related, have shared lemmas (the same lemma for printer paper and term paper). However, most aspects of cognition are thought to be graded, not discrete; could lemmas be graded too? We conducted a preregistered picture-word interference study with pictures of words whose meanings ranged from unrelated (homophones) to very related (regular polysemes). Whereas semantic competitors to picture names slow picture naming, semantic competitors to non-depicted meanings of homophones facilitate naming, suggesting distinct lemmas for homophones' meanings. We predicted that competitors to non-depicted senses of polysemes would slow naming, as polysemes' depicted and non-depicted senses presumably share a lemma. Crucially, we aimed to examine the transition from facilitation to inhibition: two groupings (where competitors to non-depicted senses led to facilitation for words with two lemmas but inhibition for words with one lemma) would imply that lemmas are indeed discrete. But a transition that varies continuously by sense relatedness would imply that lemmas are graded. Unexpectedly, competitors to non-depicted senses of both homophones and polysemes facilitated naming. Although these results do not indicate whether lemmas are graded or discrete, they do inform a long-standing question on the nature of polysemes, supporting a multiple-lemma (vs. core-lemma) account.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Leon Li
- Duke University, Durham, NC, USA
| | | | | | - L Robert Slevc
- Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, College Park, College Park, MD, USA
| |
Collapse
|
3
|
Qu C. The correlated influence of semantic types, L1 translation equivalents and language proficiency on EFL learners' production of polysemous words. Front Psychol 2023; 14:1162008. [PMID: 38187426 PMCID: PMC10771259 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1162008] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2023] [Accepted: 11/17/2023] [Indexed: 01/09/2024] Open
Abstract
The current research investigated the influencing factors of the full mastery of L2 (English) polysemous words with a Chinese-English translation test. The concepts of "meaning" and "L2 equivalent" were strictly distinguished when designing the test. The manipulation of variables came to a mixed design of 2 (semantic types: core meaning, periphery meaning) × 2 (types of L1 translation equivalents: dominant L1 translation equivalent, non-dominant L1 translation equivalent) × 2 (language proficiency: low proficiency, high proficiency). The results showed that: (1) The semantic types and L1 translation equivalents had significant influence on the production of polysemous words in that the core meanings and the dominant L1 translation equivalent helped the learners access the words quickly and produce them more efficiently; The dominant L1 translation equivalents could facilitate the production of the words presented with their periphery meanings; (2) On the whole, there was no significant difference of the productive competence between the two groups of participants. Comparatively, the high proficiency learners performed better in the production of words presented in their periphery meanings corresponding to non-dominant L1 translation equivalents. And they showed a less degree of dependence on L1 translation equivalents in the process of language production.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Chunhong Qu
- Department of English Education, College of Foreign Languages, Capital Normal University, Beijing, China
| |
Collapse
|
4
|
DeLong KA, Trott S, Kutas M. Offline dominance and zeugmatic similarity normings of variably ambiguous words assessed against a neural language model (BERT). Behav Res Methods 2023; 55:1537-1557. [PMID: 35689168 PMCID: PMC10040203 DOI: 10.3758/s13428-022-01869-6] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 04/29/2022] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
For any research program examining how ambiguous words are processed in broader linguistic contexts, a first step is to establish factors relating to the frequency balance or dominance of those words' multiple meanings, as well as the similarity of those meanings to one other. Homonyms-words with divergent meanings-are one ambiguous word type commonly utilized in psycholinguistic research. In contrast, although polysemes-words with multiple related senses-are far more common in English, they have been less frequently used as tools for understanding one-to-many word-to-meaning mappings. The current paper details two norming studies of a relatively large number of ambiguous English words. In the first, offline dominance norming is detailed for 547 homonyms and polysemes via a free association task suitable for words across the ambiguity continuum, with a goal of identifying words with more equibiased meanings. The second norming assesses offline meaning similarity for a partial subset of 318 ambiguous words (including homonyms, unambiguous words, and polysemes divided into regular and irregular types) using a novel, continuous rating method reliant on the linguistic phenomenon of zeugma. In addition, we conduct computational analyses on the human similarity norming data using the BERT pretrained neural language model (Devlin et al., 2018, BERT: Pre-training of deep bidirectional transformers for language understanding. ArXiv Preprint. arXiv:1810.04805) to evaluate factors that may explain variance beyond that accounted for by dictionary-criteria ambiguity categories. Finally, we make available the summarized item dominance values and similarity ratings in resultant appendices (see supplementary material), as well as individual item and participant norming data, which can be accessed online ( https://osf.io/g7fmv/ ).
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Katherine A DeLong
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0515, USA.
| | - Sean Trott
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0515, USA
| | - Marta Kutas
- Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego (UCSD), 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA, 92093-0515, USA
- UCSD Center for Research in Language, La Jolla, CA, USA
- UCSD Department of Neurosciences, La Jolla, CA, USA
- UCSD Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind, La Jolla, CA, USA
| |
Collapse
|
5
|
Weissman B, Engelen J, Baas E, Cohn N. The Lexicon of Emoji? Conventionality Modulates Processing of Emoji. Cogn Sci 2023; 47:e13275. [PMID: 37002916 DOI: 10.1111/cogs.13275] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/11/2021] [Revised: 01/14/2023] [Accepted: 03/06/2023] [Indexed: 04/04/2023]
Abstract
Emoji have been ubiquitous in communication for over a decade, yet how they derive meaning remains underexplored. Here, we examine an aspect fundamental to linguistic meaning-making: the degree to which emoji have conventional lexicalized meanings and whether that conventionalization affects processing in real-time. Experiment 1 establishes a range of meaning agreement levels across emoji within a population; Experiment 2 measures accuracy and response times to word-emoji pairings in a match/mismatch task. In this experiment, we found that accuracy and response time both correlated significantly with the level of population-wide meaning agreement from Experiment 1, suggesting that lexical access of single emoji may be comparable to that of words, even out of context. This is consistent with theories of a multimodal lexicon that stores links between meaning, structure, and modality in long-term memory. Altogether, these findings suggest that emoji can allow a range of entrenched, lexicalized representations.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
| | - Jan Engelen
- Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University
| | - Elise Baas
- Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University
| | - Neil Cohn
- Department of Communication and Cognition, Tilburg University
| |
Collapse
|
6
|
Murphy E. Persistence Conditions of Institutional Entities: Investigating Copredication Through a Forced-Choice Experiment. Front Psychol 2021; 12:528862. [PMID: 34916982 PMCID: PMC8669508 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.528862] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/22/2020] [Accepted: 11/08/2021] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
The conditions under which certain complex polysemous nominals can sustain coherent sense relations (informally, can "survive") is investigated through a two-alternative forced choice experiment. Written scenarios were constructed which permitted copredication, through which multiple, semantically different sense types are associated with a single nominal. Participants were presented with two scenarios involving a polysemous nominal (e.g., bank, city) and had to select which scenario (and, hence, which combination of predicates) appeared to be the most prototypical, faithful realization of the nominal. In order to achieve this, an additional manipulation was added, such that the number of senses hosted by each forced choice was either equal (2 senses choice vs. 2 senses choice) or unequal (1 sense choice vs. 2/3 senses choice). In order to address certain concerns in the literature about prototypicality, a core question addressed was whether the institutional sense of the nominals strongly determined the option chosen by participants, or whether the number of senses more strongly predicted this. It was found that the best predictor of sense "survival" was not sense frequency, but rather sense complexity or approximation to the institutional sense.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Elliot Murphy
- Vivian L. Smith Department of Neurosurgery, McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX, United States.,Texas Institute for Restorative Neurotechnologies, University of Texas Health Science Center, Houston, TX, United States.,Department of Linguistics, University College London, London, United Kingdom
| |
Collapse
|
7
|
Li J, Joanisse MF. Word Senses as Clusters of Meaning Modulations: A Computational Model of Polysemy. Cogn Sci 2021; 45:e12955. [DOI: 10.1111/cogs.12955] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/23/2020] [Revised: 01/25/2021] [Accepted: 01/28/2021] [Indexed: 12/01/2022]
Affiliation(s)
- Jiangtian Li
- Department of Psychology University of Toronto Scarborough
| | - Marc F. Joanisse
- Department of Psychology The University of Western Ontario
- Brain and Mind Institute The University of Western Ontario
| |
Collapse
|
8
|
Idioms show effects of meaning relatedness and dominance similar to those seen for ambiguous words. Psychon Bull Rev 2019; 26:591-598. [PMID: 30945168 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-019-01589-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 10] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
Does the language comprehension system resolve ambiguities for single- and multiple-word units similarly? We investigate this question by examining whether two constructs with robust effects on ambiguous word processing - meaning relatedness and meaning dominance - have similar influences on idiom processing. Eye tracking showed that: (1) idioms with more related figurative and literal meanings were read faster, paralleling findings for ambiguous words, and (2) meaning relatedness and meaning dominance interacted to drive eye movements on idioms just as they do on polysemous ambiguous words. These findings are consistent with a language comprehension system that resolves ambiguities similarly regardless of literality or the number of words in the unit.
Collapse
|
9
|
Strukelj A, Niehorster DC. One page of text: Eye movements during regular and thorough reading, skimming, and spell checking. J Eye Mov Res 2018; 11. [PMID: 33828678 PMCID: PMC7198234 DOI: 10.16910/jemr.11.1.1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022] Open
Abstract
Eye movements during regular reading, thorough reading, skimming, and spell checking of single pages of text were measured, to investigate how high-level reading tasks elicited by instructions affect reading behavior. Word frequency and word length effects were found. All results were compared to regular reading. Thorough reading involved longer total reading times and more rereading, and resulted in higher comprehension scores. Skimming involved longer saccades, shorter average fixation durations, more word skipping, shorter total reading times evenly distributed across the page, and resulted in lower comprehension scores. Spell checking involved shorter saccades, longer average fixation durations, less word skipping, longer total reading times evenly distributed across the entire page, and resulted in lower comprehension scores. Replicating local effects shows that paragraphs maintain sufficient experimental rigor, while also enabling reading analyses from a global perspective. Compared to regular reading, thorough reading was more elaborate and less uniform, skimming was faster and more uniform, and spell checking was slower and more uniform.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Alexander Strukelj
- Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Sweden.,The Humanities Laboratory, Lund University, Sweden
| | - Diederick C Niehorster
- The Humanities Laboratory, Lund University, Sweden.,Department of Psychology, Lund University, Sweden
| |
Collapse
|
10
|
Lopukhina A, Laurinavichyute A, Lopukhin K, Dragoy O. The Mental Representation of Polysemy across Word Classes. Front Psychol 2018. [PMID: 29515502 PMCID: PMC5826358 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00192] [Citation(s) in RCA: 4] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Experimental studies on polysemy have come to contradictory conclusions on whether words with multiple senses are stored as separate or shared mental representations. The present study examined the semantic relatedness and semantic similarity of literal and non-literal (metonymic and metaphorical) senses of three word classes: nouns, verbs, and adjectives. Two methods were used: a psycholinguistic experiment and a distributional analysis of corpus data. In the experiment, participants were presented with 6-12 short phrases containing a polysemous word in literal, metonymic, or metaphorical senses and were asked to classify them so that phrases with the same perceived sense were grouped together. To investigate the impact of professional background on their decisions, participants were controlled for linguistic vs. non-linguistic education. For nouns and verbs, all participants preferred to group together phrases with literal and metonymic senses, but not any other pairs of senses. For adjectives, two pairs of senses were often grouped together: literal with metonymic, and metonymic with metaphorical. Participants with a linguistic background were more accurate than participants with non-linguistic backgrounds, although both groups shared principal patterns of sense classification. For the distributional analysis of corpus data, we used a semantic vector approach to quantify the similarity of phrases with literal, metonymic, and metaphorical senses in the corpora. We found that phrases with literal and metonymic senses had the highest degree of similarity for the three word classes, and that metonymic and metaphorical senses of adjectives had the highest degree of similarity among all word classes. These findings are in line with the experimental results. Overall, the results suggest that the mental representation of a polysemous word depends on its word class. In nouns and verbs, literal and metonymic senses are stored together, while metaphorical senses are stored separately; in adjectives, metonymic senses significantly overlap with both literal and metaphorical senses.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Anastasiya Lopukhina
- Neurolinguistics Laboratory, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.,Vinogradov Institute of Russian Language, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia
| | - Anna Laurinavichyute
- Neurolinguistics Laboratory, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.,Department of Linguistics, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany
| | | | - Olga Dragoy
- Neurolinguistics Laboratory, National Research University Higher School of Economics, Moscow, Russia.,Department of Speech Pathology and Neurorehabilitation, Moscow Research Institute of Psychiatry, Moscow, Russia
| |
Collapse
|
11
|
Wang Y, Feng L, Zhu J. Novel artificial bee colony based feature selection method for filtering redundant information. APPL INTELL 2017. [DOI: 10.1007/s10489-017-1010-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 23] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022]
|
12
|
Shen W, Li X. Processing and Representation of Ambiguous Words in Chinese Reading: Evidence from Eye Movements. Front Psychol 2016; 7:1713. [PMID: 27857701 PMCID: PMC5093148 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01713] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.9] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/22/2016] [Accepted: 10/17/2016] [Indexed: 11/13/2022] Open
Abstract
In the current study, we used eye tracking to investigate whether senses of polysemous words and meanings of homonymous words are represented and processed similarly or differently in Chinese reading. Readers read sentences containing target words which was either homonymous words or polysemous words. The contexts of text preceding the target words were manipulated to bias the participants toward reading the ambiguous words according to their dominant, subordinate, or neutral meanings. Similarly, disambiguating regions following the target words were also manipulated to favor either the dominant or subordinate meanings of ambiguous words. The results showed that there were similar eye movement patterns when Chinese participants read sentences containing homonymous and polysemous words. The study also found that participants took longer to read the target word and the disambiguating text following it when the prior context and disambiguating regions favored divergent meanings rather than the same meaning. These results suggested that homonymy and polysemy are represented similarly in the mental lexicon when a particular meaning (sense) is fully specified by disambiguating information. Furthermore, multiple meanings (senses) are represented as separate entries in the mental lexicon.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Wei Shen
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China; University of Chinese Academy of SciencesBeijing, China
| | - Xingshan Li
- Key Laboratory of Behavioral Science, Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences Beijing, China
| |
Collapse
|
13
|
McHugh T, Buchanan L. Pun processing from a psycholinguistic perspective: Introducing the Model of Psycholinguistic Hemispheric Incongruity Laughter (M.PHIL). Laterality 2016; 21:455-483. [DOI: 10.1080/1357650x.2016.1146292] [Citation(s) in RCA: 5] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 10/22/2022]
|
14
|
Vulchanova M, Saldaña D, Chahboun S, Vulchanov V. Figurative language processing in atypical populations: the ASD perspective. Front Hum Neurosci 2015; 9:24. [PMID: 25741261 PMCID: PMC4330886 DOI: 10.3389/fnhum.2015.00024] [Citation(s) in RCA: 52] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/14/2014] [Accepted: 01/11/2015] [Indexed: 11/21/2022] Open
Abstract
This paper is intended to provide a critical overview of experimental and clinical research documenting problems in figurative language processing in atypical populations with a focus on the Autistic Spectrum. Research in the comprehension and processing of figurative language in autism invariably documents problems in this area. The greater paradox is that even at the higher end of the spectrum or in the cases of linguistically talented individuals with Asperger syndrome, where structural language competence is intact, problems with extended language persist. If we assume that figurative and extended uses of language essentially depend on the perception and processing of more concrete core concepts and phenomena, the commonly observed failure in atypical populations to understand figurative language remains a puzzle. Various accounts have been offered to explain this issue, ranging from linking potential failure directly to overall structural language competence (Norbury, 2005; Brock et al., 2008) to right-hemispheric involvement (Gold and Faust, 2010). We argue that the dissociation between structural language and figurative language competence in autism should be sought in more general cognitive mechanisms and traits in the autistic phenotype (e.g., in terms of weak central coherence, Vulchanova et al., 2012b), as well as failure at on-line semantic integration with increased complexity and diversity of the stimuli (Coulson and Van Petten, 2002). This perspective is even more compelling in light of similar problems in a number of conditions, including both acquired (e.g., Aphasia) and developmental disorders (Williams Syndrome). This dissociation argues against a simple continuity view of language interpretation.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Mila Vulchanova
- Language Acquisition and Language Processing Lab, Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyTrondheim, Norway
| | - David Saldaña
- Individual Differences, Language and Cognition Lab, Department of Developmental and Educational Psychology, University of SevilleSeville, Spain
| | - Sobh Chahboun
- Language Acquisition and Language Processing Lab, Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyTrondheim, Norway
| | - Valentin Vulchanov
- Language Acquisition and Language Processing Lab, Department of Language and Literature, Norwegian University of Science and TechnologyTrondheim, Norway
| |
Collapse
|
15
|
Eddington CM, Tokowicz N. How meaning similarity influences ambiguous word processing: the current state of the literature. Psychon Bull Rev 2015; 22:13-37. [PMID: 24889119 PMCID: PMC5114844 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-014-0665-7] [Citation(s) in RCA: 25] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/08/2022]
Abstract
The majority of words in the English language do not correspond to a single meaning, but rather correspond to two or more unrelated meanings (i.e., are homonyms) or multiple related senses (i.e., are polysemes). It has been proposed that the different types of "semantically-ambiguous words" (i.e., words with more than one meaning) are processed and represented differently in the human mind. Several review papers and books have been written on the subject of semantic ambiguity (e.g., Adriaens, Small, Cottrell, & Tanenhaus, 1988; Burgess & Simpson, 1988; Degani & Tokowicz, 2010; Gorfein, 1989, 2001; Simpson, 1984). However, several more recent studies (e.g., Klein & Murphy, 2001; Klepousniotou, 2002; Klepousniotou & Baum, 2007; Rodd, Gaskell, & Marslen-Wilson, 2002) have investigated the role of the semantic similarity between the multiple meanings of ambiguous words on processing and representation, whereas this was not the emphasis of previous reviews of the literature. In this review, we focus on the current state of the semantic ambiguity literature that examines how different types of ambiguous words influence processing and representation. We analyze the consistent and inconsistent findings reported in the literature and how factors such as semantic similarity, meaning/sense frequency, task, timing, and modality affect ambiguous word processing. We discuss the findings with respect to recent parallel distributed processing (PDP) models of ambiguity processing (Armstrong & Plaut, 2008, 2011; Rodd, Gaskell, & Marslen-Wilson, 2004). Finally, we discuss how experience/instance-based models (e.g., Hintzman, 1986; Reichle & Perfetti, 2003) can inform a comprehensive understanding of semantic ambiguity resolution.
Collapse
Affiliation(s)
- Charles M. Eddington
- Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh,
3939 O’Hara St., Room 651, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
| | - Natasha Tokowicz
- Learning Research and Development Center, University of Pittsburgh,
3939 O’Hara St., Room 634, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
| |
Collapse
|