Abstract
These studies explore the role of context in determining what information about the meanings of words is activated in memory at the time a word is encountered in a sentence. Using a color-naming paradigm, it was shown that both meanings of a word that has two distinct meanings are activated in memory at the time the word is heard in a sentence. This activation occurs even when there is sufficient contextual information to indicate which meaning was intended by the speaker. These results support the hypothesis that there exists in memory an isolable subjective lexicon. They suggest that context which is effective in disambiguating lexical ambiguities in the language has its effect only at a relatively late stage in the cognitive processing involved in language comprehension.
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This research was based on a dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the PhD degree at the University of Oregon and was conducted while the author held an NSF predoctoral traineeship. Funds for Ss and equipment were provided by NSF Grant GB 21020 and by USOE Grant OEG-0-72-0717 from the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare. The author thanks Michael Posner, Ray Hyman, Gerald Reicher, and Merrill Garrett for their helpful comments and criticism on this research.
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Conrad, C. Context effects in sentence comprehension: A study of the subjective lexicon. Memory & Cognition 2, 130–138 (1974). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197504
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03197504