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Semantic Ambiguity Effects in L2 Word Recognition.
1Institute of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Nagoya University, Furo-cho, Chikusa-ku, Nagoya, 464-8601, Aichi, Japan. ishida_tomomi@nagoya-u.jp.
Ambiguous words are recognized faster by both native and non-native English speakers. However, second language (L2) learners showed a greater ambiguity advantage, suggesting unique processing differences in L2 word recognition.
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Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Second Language Acquisition
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Previous research indicates an "ambiguity advantage" in first language (L1) word recognition, where ambiguous words are processed more efficiently.
- Understanding lexical processing in second language (L2) learners is crucial for explaining cross-linguistic influences and cognitive mechanisms.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the ambiguity effect in English word recognition among both L1 and L2 speakers.
- To compare the magnitude of the ambiguity advantage between native and non-native English speakers.
Main Methods:
- A lexical decision task was employed, where participants identified whether letter strings were valid English words.
- Participants included both native English speakers (L1) and proficient non-native English speakers (L2).
Main Results:
- An ambiguity advantage was observed in both L1 and L2 English speakers.
- The ambiguity advantage was significantly larger for the L2 speaker group compared to the L1 speaker group.
Conclusions:
- The findings suggest that L2 word recognition benefits from ambiguity, potentially more so than L1 processing.
- This enhanced effect in L2 learners may stem from slower feedback activation from semantic to orthographic levels during word recognition.

