Disambiguating the ambiguity advantage effect in word recognition: An advantage for polysemous but not homonymous words

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.02.001Get rights and content

Abstract

Previous lexical decision studies reported a processing advantage for words with multiple meanings (i.e., the “ambiguity advantage” effect). The present study further specifies the source of this advantage by showing that it is based on the extent of meaning relatedness of ambiguous words. Four types of ambiguous words, balanced homonymous (e.g., “panel”), unbalanced homonymous (e.g., “port”), metaphorically polysemous (e.g., “lip”), and metonymically polysemous (e.g., “rabbit”), were used in auditory and visual simple lexical decision experiments. It was found that ambiguous words with multiple related senses (i.e., polysemous words) are processed faster than frequency-matched unambiguous control words, whereas ambiguous words with multiple unrelated meanings (i.e., homonymous words) do not show such an advantage. In addition, a distinction within polysemy (into metaphor and metonymy) is demonstrated experimentally. These results call for a re-evaluation of models of word recognition, so that the advantage found for polysemous, but not homonymous, words can be accommodated.

Section snippets

The ambiguity advantage effect

Lexical ambiguity, where a single string of letters or phonemes can lead to more than one interpretation, is very common in natural language. Usually, we select one of these different interpretations based on the context in which the ambiguous word occurs. Ambiguous words can also be recognized in isolation. Upon presentation of an ambiguous word in isolation, we are normally able to identify an appropriate meaning and we are often unaware of alternative meanings.

Most research that has compared

The present study

The present study, thus, aims to identify further and clarify the source of the processing advantage found in previous lexical decision studies for words with multiple meanings (i.e., the “ambiguity advantage” effect). Based on the hypothesis that “sense-relatedness” drives the processing advantage in word recognition, the present study, using two simple lexical decision experiments (an auditory and a visual, similar to Rodd et al., 2002), addressed the following question: If

Experiment 1

To investigate the effects of having multiple unrelated meanings (i.e., homonymous words) versus the effects of having multiple related senses (i.e., polysemous words) on word processing, a simple auditory lexical decision task was designed.

Experiment 2

Experiment 2 used the same materials as Experiment 1, but in the visual modality.

General discussion

The present set of studies addressed the issue of whether homonymous ambiguous words (i.e., ambiguous words with multiple unrelated meanings) are processed differently from polysemous ambiguous words (i.e., ambiguous words with multiple related senses) in an attempt to clarify further the so-called “ambiguity advantage” effect in word recognition. Overall, the results supported our hypothesis of a “sense-relatedness advantage” effect, as opposed to an “ambiguity advantage” effect, in that a

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by a McGill Majors Fellowship and a Studentship from the Faculty of Medicine, McGill University to the first author and by a grant from the Fonds pour la Formation de Chercheurs et l’Aide à la Recherche (FCAR, now FQRNT) to the second author. We would like to thank Meg Grant and Erin E. Vensel for their help with testing and the preliminary analysis of the results.

References (47)

  • H. Rubenstein et al.

    Homographic entries in the internal lexicon

    Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

    (1970)
  • M.S. Seidenberg et al.

    Automatic access of the meanings of ambiguous words in context: Some limitations of knowledge-based processing

    Cognitive Psychology

    (1982)
  • D.A. Swinney

    Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)consideration of context effects

    Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

    (1979)
  • J. Apresjan

    Regular polysemy

    Linguistics

    (1974)
  • D. Besner et al.

    Wrestling with ambiguity—Further reflections: Reply to Masson and Borowsky (1995) and Rueckl (1995)

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

    (1995)
  • R. Borowsky et al.

    Semantic ambiguity effects in word identification

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition

    (1996)
  • A. Copestake et al.

    Semi-productive polysemy and sense extension

    Journal of Semantics

    (1995)
  • D.A. Cruse

    Lexical semantics

    (1986)
  • K.I. Forster et al.

    Terminating and exhaustive search in lexical access

    Memory and Cognition

    (1976)
  • W.N. Francis et al.

    Frequency analysis of English usage: Lexicon and grammar

    (1982)
  • M.G. Gaskell et al.

    Integrating form and meaning: A distributed model of speech perception

    Language and Cognitive Processes

    (1997)
  • K.J. Gilhooly et al.

    Meaning-dependent ratings of imagery, age of acquisition, familiarity, and concreteness for 387 ambiguous words

    Behavior Research Methods & Instrumentation

    (1980)
  • Y. Hino et al.

    Effects of polysemy in lexical decision and naming: An alternative to lexical access accounts

    Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance

    (1996)
  • Cited by (0)

    View full text