IDENTIFIERS *Lexical Ambiguity

This study investigates the role of specific inhibitory processes in lexical ambiguity resolution. An attentional view of inhibition and a view based on specific automatic inhibition between nodes predict different results when a neutral item is processed between an ambiguous word and a related target. Subjects were 32 English speakers with normal or corrected vision and with no reading disabilities. Stimuli of 120 ambiguous words were presented by an Apple II computer system to each subject. Subjects performed a lexical decision on long lists of targets presented one word at a time. The results suggest that contextually inappropriate meanings are suppressed by specific inhibitory processes, but they do not rule out the role of attention in the overall process of resolving ambiguous word meanings. (Author/JAZ) * Reproductions supplied by EDRS are the best that can be made