The relationship between field independence and sentence disambiguation ability

The relationship between field independence and ability to disambiguate sentences was ivestigated. Sixty-nine college students were administered the Components test of the Flanagan Aptitude Classification Tests as a measure of field independence. Sixty ambiguous sentences, consisting of 15 each of lexical, surface structure, underlying structure, and multiple ambiguity types, were used to assess ability to disambiguate sentences. Results revealed a moderate positive correlation between field independence and sentence disambiguation ability. This relationship suggests (1) that field independence is not a cognitive style limited only to perceptual restructuring processes and (2) that sentential disambiguation processes are not solely a function of linguistic competence.