Abstract
English Language ambiguity has always been one of the major concerns of psycholinguistic research. A number of studies have been carried out to investigate different types of ambiguity resolution, including phonological ambiguity resolution, lexical ambiguity resolution, syntactic ambiguity resolution and pragmatic ambiguity resolution. Studies of lexical ambiguity resolution have found that lexically ambiguous words with two meanings of the same frequency took longer to read than lexically unambiguous words, suggesting that different meanings of ambiguous words compete for integration to the local context. This paper gives an overview of the classical psycholinguistic studies on English lexical ambiguity resolution which employed the eye-tracking technology.
Highlights
A serial of psycholinguistic studies have investigated lexical ambiguity resolution and discovered that ambiguous lexically items which had two meanings that are frequent took longer to read than lexically unambiguous words, suggesting that a mechanism of competition of different meanings of ambiguous words was involved in processing. Rayner & Duffy (1986) observed that when the two meaning of an ambiguous word are similar in frequency, the reading times for that ambiguous word was longer, compared to its unambiguous control word
Studies of lexical ambiguity resolution have found that lexically ambiguous words with two meanings of the same frequency took longer to read than lexically unambiguous words, suggesting that different meanings of ambiguous words compete for integration to the local context
In Duffy, Morris, & Rayner (1988), the results showed that the reading times for the ambiguous words with two frequent meaning were longer than the unambiguous words
Summary
A serial of psycholinguistic studies have investigated lexical ambiguity resolution and discovered that ambiguous lexically items which had two meanings that are frequent took longer to read than lexically unambiguous words, suggesting that a mechanism of competition of different meanings of ambiguous words was involved in processing. Rayner & Duffy (1986) observed that when the two meaning of an ambiguous word are similar in frequency, the reading times for that ambiguous word was longer, compared to its unambiguous control word. A serial of psycholinguistic studies have investigated lexical ambiguity resolution and discovered that ambiguous lexically items which had two meanings that are frequent took longer to read than lexically unambiguous words, suggesting that a mechanism of competition of different meanings of ambiguous words was involved in processing. Rayner & Duffy (1986) observed that when the two meaning of an ambiguous word are similar in frequency, the reading times for that ambiguous word was longer, compared to its unambiguous control word It suggests that two frequent meanings of an ambiguous lexical item were both activated at the same stage of processing. This paper gives a general introduction to the development and major focus of eye movement research in reading comprehension and reviews a serial studies by famous American psycholinguist Keith Rayner and colleges investigating issues of lexical ambiguity resolution
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