Processing%20Multiple%20Unrelated%20Meanings%20versus%20Multiple%20Related%20Senses

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Processing Multiple Unrelated Meanings versus
Multiple Related Senses

• Ekaterini Klepousniotou
• McGill University

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The so-called ambiguity advantage effect

• Previous studies of lexical ambiguity reported
  faster reaction times for lexically ambiguous
  words than for unambiguous words in visual
  lexical decision tasks
• ambiguity advantage effect
• However, it is not clear what type of ambiguity
  is producing this effect

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Theoretical distinctions of lexical ambiguity

• Homonymy a lexical item accidentally carries
  two (or more) distinct and unrelated meanings
• pen 1 à a writing device and pen 2 à an
  enclosure
• Polysemy a single lexical item has several
  different but related senses
• mouth à organ of body and entrance of cave

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• Two types of polysemy
• Metaphorical relation of analogy holds between
  the senses it is irregular
• eye à organ of the body and hole in a
  needle
• Metonymic relation of connectedness holds
  between the senses it is regular
• rabbit à the animal and the meat of that
  animal

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• The distinction between words with multiple
  meanings and words with multiple senses has been
  the subject of limited investigation, e.g. Rodd
  et al. (2002)
• However, classification based on standard
  dictionaries
• In the present study
• homonymous words à chosen from standardized
  lists
• metonymous and metaphorical words à chosen to
  exhibit specific relations between their two
  senses

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Research Questions

• Are ambiguous words with multiple unrelated
  meanings (i.e., homonymous words) processed
  differently from ambiguous words with multiple
  related senses (i.e., metonymic and metaphorical
  polysemous words)?
• Is the ambiguity advantage actually a
  sense-relatedness advantage?

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Predictions

• Based on the meaning-relatedness hypothesis, it
  was predicted that
• ambiguous words with multiple related senses
  (i.e., polysemous words) lt control words (i.e.,
  CW)
• metonymous words lt CW
• metaphorical words lt? CW
• ambiguous words with multiple unrelated meanings
  (i.e., homonymous words) CW

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Method

• Participants. Eighteen native speakers of English
• Average age 25 (range 20-35)
• Average education 17 (range 15-25)
• Task. Single-word visual lexical decision

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• Procedure.
• For example
• Fixation point ISI Visual Target
  Response Key
• (150 ms) 100 ms pen yes
• (150 ms) 100 ms hotel yes
• (150 ms) 100 ms viodin no

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• Materials.
• Experimental target words consisted of three sets
  of ambiguous words
• homonymous words
• pen à a writing device and an enclosure
• polysemous words with metaphorical extensions
• eye à organ of the body and hole in a
  needle
• polysemous words with count/mass metonymic
  extensions
• rabbit à the animal and the meat of that
  animal

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• Materials.
• All ambiguous words had the same orthographic and
  phonological forms but different meanings
• Equal number of unambiguous control words,
  matched for frequency of occurrence and length,
  to experimental ambiguous words
• Equal number of non-word and real word targets

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Mean RTs (in msec) for each conditionCW
unambiguous frequency control wordW ambiguous
word
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Conclusion

• Results support our hypothesis that there is a
  processing advantage for ambiguous words with
  multiple related senses, but not for ambiguous
  words with multiple unrelated meanings
• Processing advantage confined to metonymically
  polysemous words, which have senses that are
  closely related in meaning
• Metaphorical words, however, did not show such a
  processing advantage, due to the fact that their
  senses are more lexicalized

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• Thus
• Results suggest that contrary to common view in
  literature, there is no processing advantage for
  words with multiple unrelated meanings (i.e.,
  homonymous words)
• The so-called ambiguity advantage effect has to
  be re-defined to reflect the sense-ambiguity
  effect

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Implications for future research

• The nature of mental representations
• Possibly different mental representations
  depending on the type of ambiguity
• Homonymy à distinct mental representations for
  each meaning
• Polysemy à a single mental representation

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• Lexical ambiguity studies
• Important implications for neurolinguistic
  studies involving lexical ambiguity
• Patients with right hemisphere lesions are shown
  to have problems with ambiguous words
• Better description of their linguistic abilities
  if we are able to distinguish between different
  types of lexical ambiguity

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Acknowledgments

• Dr. Shari Baum
• Dr. Brendan Gillon
• Dr. Eva Kehayia
• McGill Major Scholarship
• McGill Medicine Internal Studentship