Activation and Selection Processes in the Recognition of Ambiguous Words

Three experiments examined the role of meaning frequency in the processing of ambiguous words in isolation. Subjects made lexical decisions to target words that were associates of the more frequent or less frequent meaning of a homograph prime. The first two experiments charted the time course of ac...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance 1985-02, Vol.11 (1), p.28-39
Main Authors: Simpson, Greg B, Burgess, Curt
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Cognitive Discrimination
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Homographs
Human
Language
Production and perception of written language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Word Meaning
Words (Phonetic Units)
Citations: Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Three experiments examined the role of meaning frequency in the processing of ambiguous words in isolation. Subjects made lexical decisions to target words that were associates of the more frequent or less frequent meaning of a homograph prime. The first two experiments charted the time course of activation of the two meanings, showing that the dominant meaning is retrieved first, with the subordinate meaning activated more slowly. Subsequent to its retrieval, activation of the less frequent meaning decreases again. The third experiment indicated that meaning selection is the result of allocation of attention to information related to the dominant meaning of the ambiguous word. The selection process appears to be active but difficult for the subject to control.
ISSN:0096-1523
1939-1277
DOI:10.1037/0096-1523.11.1.28