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An on-line investigation of lexical ambiguity processing in schizophrenia
David Copland1, Helen Chenery, Greg Savage
1Center for Research in Language Processing and Linguistics, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. d.copland@mailbox.uq.edu.au
Abstract:
The processing of lexical ambiguity in context was investigated in eight individuals with schizophrenia and a matched control group. Participants made speeded lexical decisions on the third word in auditory word triplets representing concordant (coin-bank-money), discordant (river-bank-money), neutral (day-bank-money), and unrelated (river-day-money) conditions. When the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the words was 100 ms, individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated priming consistent with selective, context-based lexical activation. At 1250 ms ISI, a pattern of nonselective meaning facilitation was obtained. These results suggest an attentional breakdown in the sustained inhibition of meanings on the basis of lexical context.