Tolerating ambiguity: ambiguous words recruit the left inferior frontal gyrus in absence of a behavioral effect

Many models of word recognition predict a lexical ambiguity disadvantage in semantic categorization tasks (SCTs). However, recent evidence suggests that an ambiguity disadvantage in SCT results from a bias in the decision-making phase of the task and not in the meaning-activation phase: Behavioral effects of ambiguity disappear when these decision biases are controlled (Pexman, Hino, & Lupker, 2004). The current study used event-related functional magnetic resonance imaging to examine the neural correlates of ambiguity in a task that produced no behavioral ambiguity effect (i.e., SCT with a well-defined decision category). Twenty healthy adults participated. Results showed that despite producing no behavioral effect of ambiguity, ambiguous words were associated with the recruitment of cortical structures implicated in top-down modulation of noisy activity (e.g., left inferior frontal gyrus) when compared to unambiguous words. These results are interpreted as evidence that multiple meanings are activated for ambiguous words in SCT.