THE EFFECT OF MEANING FREQUENCY ON PROCESSING LEXICALLY AMBIGUOUS WORDS: Evidence From Eye Fixations |
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Authors: | Sara C Sereno Jeremy M Pacht Keith Rayner |
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Affiliation: | University of Massachusetts |
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Abstract: | Abstract —Subjects read sentences containing lexically ambiguous words while their eye movements were monitored Biased ambiguous words (those that have one highly dominant sense) were used m sentences containing a prior context that instantiated their subordinate sense Control words were matched m frequency both to the dominant and to the subordinate meaning of the ambiguous word (high- and low-frequency controls) Subjects fixated longer on both the ambiguous word and the low-frequence control than on the high-frequency control When the target was ambiguous, however, the duration of posttarget fixations was longer and the likelihood of making a regression to the target was greater than when the target was an unambiguous control The results are discussed m relation to current models of lexical ambiguity resolution |
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