Semantic Ambiguity: Do Multiple Meanings Inhibit or Facilitate Word Recognition?

Haro, Juan; Ferré, Pilar

doi:10.1007/s10936-017-9554-3

Cited by 16 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The picture is complicated, however, by inconsistent previous findings regarding the impact of number of senses. This variable is modulated by other factors such as task demands, relatedness of meanings, method for defining number of senses, and type of distractors; in some cases, words with more senses actually show an advantage (e.g., Azuma & Van Orden, 1997; Borowsky & Masson, 1996; Haro & Ferré, 2018; Piercey & Joordens, 2000; Rodd, Berriman, Landau, Lee, Ho, Gaskell & Davis, 2012; Rodd, Gaskell & Marslen-Wilson, 2002). Thus, it cannot be definitively concluded whether the larger number of senses for verbs in this study influenced the grammatical class effect.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The grammatical class effect is separable from the concreteness effect in language learning

Martin

Tokowicz

2019

Bilingualism

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Typically concrete words are learned better than abstract words (Kaushanskaya & Rechtzigel, 2012), and nouns are learned better than verbs (Kauschke & Stenneken, 2008). However, most studies on concreteness have not manipulated grammatical class (and vice versa), leaving the relationship between the two unclear. Therefore, in two experiments we examined the effects of grammatical class and concreteness simultaneously in foreign language vocabulary learning. In Experiment 1, English speakers learned ‘foreign language’ words (English pseudowords) mapped to concrete and abstract nouns and verbs. In Experiment 2, English speakers learned German words with the same procedure. Overall, the typical advantages for concrete words and nouns were observed. Hierarchical regression analyses provided evidence that the grammatical class effect is separable from the concreteness effect. This result challenges a strict concreteness-based source of noun/verb differences. The results also suggest that the influences of concreteness and grammatical class may vary across language measures and tasks.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The grammatical class effect is separable from the concreteness effect in language learning

Martin

Tokowicz

2019

Bilingualism

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“…There still lacks a definite theoretical formulation which can be used to predict the interaction among the multiple meanings of L2 ambiguous words. In the field of word recognition, some studies have found differences between processing unambiguous words and ambiguous words (Klepousniotou and Baum, 2007;Klepousniotou et al, 2012;Haro and Ferré, 2018;Haro et al, 2019). For example, it takes less time to recognize ambiguous words than unambiguous words (Borowsky and Masson, 1996;Hino and Lupker, 1996;Haro and Ferré, 2018;Haro et al, 2019).…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In the field of word recognition, some studies have found differences between processing unambiguous words and ambiguous words (Klepousniotou and Baum, 2007;Klepousniotou et al, 2012;Haro and Ferré, 2018;Haro et al, 2019). For example, it takes less time to recognize ambiguous words than unambiguous words (Borowsky and Masson, 1996;Hino and Lupker, 1996;Haro and Ferré, 2018;Haro et al, 2019). Moreover, some studies further found homonym disadvantage and polysemy advantage compared to processing unambiguous words (Rodd et al, 2002;Beretta et al, 2005).…”

Section: The Current Studymentioning

confidence: 99%

The Effect of Semantic Similarity on Learning Ambiguous Words in a Second Language: An Event-Related Potential Study

Zhang

Liang

et al. 2020

Front. Psychol.

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Ambiguous words have multiple meanings. How these multiple meanings interact with each other during ambiguous word learning remains unclear. The current study adopted an event-related potentials (ERPs) technique to explore whether there is an interaction between two meanings when learning second language (L2) ambiguous words and how semantic similarity affects ambiguous word learning. In order to explore this issue, Chinese-English bilinguals were asked to learn pseudowords, which were paired with either two related new meanings (polysemes), two unrelated new meanings (homonyms), or one single new meaning (monosomies) over 2 consecutive days. ERP results revealed that learning the second meaning of a homonym induced a more negative N400 than the first meaning; learning the second meaning of a polyseme tended to produce a more positive late component (LPC) than the first meaning. These results indicate that the first meaning of homonyms may interfere with learning their second meaning. However, the first meaning of polysemous words may facilitate learning their second meaning. The current findings suggest that different mechanisms might be involved in learning L2 homonyms and polysemes.

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“…Hence, despite having two different meanings linguistically, the word despecho can be said to have only the psychological meaning of the negative affective state. For further discussion of the pros and cons of the dictionary and subjective approaches, see Fraga, Padrón, Perea, and Comesaña (2017), Haro and Ferré (2018), and Haro et al (2017). 2.…”

Section: Limitations and Conclusionmentioning

confidence: 99%

HEROÍNA: Drug or hero? Meaning-dependent valence norms for ambiguous Spanish words

Huete‐Pérez

Haro

Fraga

et al. 2019

Applied Psycholinguistics

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Semantically ambiguous and emotional words occur frequently in language, and the different meanings of ambiguous words can sometimes have different emotional loads. For example, the Spanish word heroína (heroin/heroine) can refer to a drug or to a woman who performs a heroic act. Because both ambiguity and emotionality affect word processing, there is a need for normative databases that include data on the emotionality of the different meanings of such words. Thus far, no bases of this type are available in Spanish. With this in mind, the current study will present meaning-dependent affective (valence) ratings for 252 Spanish ambiguous words. The analyses performed show that (a) among ambiguous words, those words with meanings that have distinct affective valence are quite frequent, (b) ambiguous words rated as neutral in isolation can have meanings of opposite valence (i.e., negative-positive or positive-negative), and (c) the valence estimated for ambiguous words in isolation is better explained by the weighted average of the valence of their meanings by dominance. A database of this kind can be useful both for basic research (e.g., relationship between emotion and language and ambiguity processing) and for applied research (e.g., cognitive and emotional biases in emotional disorders and second language learning).

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Semantic Ambiguity: Do Multiple Meanings Inhibit or Facilitate Word Recognition?

Cited by 16 publications

References 35 publications

The grammatical class effect is separable from the concreteness effect in language learning

The grammatical class effect is separable from the concreteness effect in language learning

The Effect of Semantic Similarity on Learning Ambiguous Words in a Second Language: An Event-Related Potential Study

HEROÍNA: Drug or hero? Meaning-dependent valence norms for ambiguous Spanish words

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