Chapter 7 Comprehension Processes in Reading Ambiguous Sentences: Reflections from Eye Movements

Abstract

This chapter reviews different types of ambiguity. One of the primary findings is that the different types of ambiguity are handled in different ways by the language processing system. The research relies very heavily upon eye movement recording during reading to make inferences about how ambiguous sentences are processed. The eye movements provide a very good on-line record of moment-to-moment comprehension processes and provide a relatively natural reading situation so that a good sense can be produced of how people normally process ambiguous sentences. The results are plausible and convincing, and the cross-modal priming situation rarely occurs during more normal real-world situations.