Adult age differences in the ability to comprehend ambiguous sentences

Abstract

A fundamental issue in the study of language is the manner in which sentences are comprehended. Not only must the meaning of individual words be determined; the words themselves must be interpreted according to the context of the sentence. Ambiguity in the meaning of words, however, often makes the comprehension of sentences quite difficult. In such cases, contextual elements from the sentence are thought to aid in the comprehension of ambiguity (Simpson, 1981, 1984; Swinney and Hakes, 1976). These elements are thought to generate a series of expectations that will direct the reader’s word recognition strategies to the most relevant meaning of the ambiguous word (Becker, 1980, 1985; Forster, 1981; Onifer and Swinney, 1981; Simpson, 1984; Stanovich and West, 1981, 1983). Currently we do not know precisely how contextual elements aid in the resolution of lexical ambiguity. Simpson (1984) and others (Becker, 1980; Stanovich and West, 1983) have suggested that we may understand the role of these elements in the resolution of ambiguity by considering how more general models of word recognition deal with the problem of context. By understanding how sentence context affects the ability to recognize unambiguous words we may be able to understand how contextual elements affect the ability to recognize words in ambiguous or conceptually difficult situations.