Lexical processing of ambiguous words: dominance or associative strength?

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Neuroscience

Background:

• Understanding how the brain processes ambiguous words is crucial for cognitive science.
• Meaning frequency (dominance) and associative strength are key factors influencing word recognition.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the independent roles of meaning frequency and associative strength in processing ambiguous words.
• To differentiate the effects of these factors at varying stimulus onset asynchronies (SOAs).

Main Methods:

• Four experiments utilized lexical decision tasks with homograph primes and associate targets.
• Stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA) was manipulated to differentiate between automatic and controlled processing (long SOAs: 750 ms; short SOAs: 250 ms).
• Associative norms were used to measure the strength of association between prime meanings and target words.

Main Results:

• At long SOAs (750 ms), semantic priming was facilitated by the associative strength of the target word, not its dominance.
• At short SOAs (250 ms), manipulations of associative strength did not significantly affect semantic priming, suggesting automatic processes were engaged.

Conclusions:

• Semantic priming for homographs at longer processing durations is primarily driven by associative strength.
• Automatic semantic activation of word meanings is not modulated by associative strength at very short processing intervals.