Word-meaning priming extends beyond homonyms

TY - JOUR

T1 - Word-meaning priming extends beyond homonyms

AU - Curtis, Adam J

AU - Mak, Matthew H C

AU - Chen, Shuang

AU - Rodd, Jennifer M

AU - Gaskell, M Gareth

N1 - © 2022 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY license.

PY - 2022/9

Y1 - 2022/9

N2 - When a homonym (e.g., bark) is encountered in a sentential context that biases its interpretation towards a less frequent meaning, subsequent interpretations of the word are more likely to favour that subordinate meaning. Such word-meaning priming effects have been shown to be maintained via sleep-related consolidation, leading some to suggest that declarative memory systems play a crucial role in language comprehension, providing a relatively enduring contextually bound memory trace for the ambiguous word. By this account, word-meaning priming effects should be observable for all words, not just homonyms. In three experiments, participants were exposed to non-homonym targets (e.g., "balloon") in sentences that biased interpretation towards a specific aspect of the word's meaning (e.g., balloon‑helium vs. balloon-float). After a ~ 10-30 min delay, the targets were presented in relatedness judgement and associate production tasks to assess whether the sentential contexts enhanced access to the primed aspect of the word's meaning. The results reveal that word-meaning priming effects do extend to non-homonyms. Indeed, there was also some evidence of a more generalised priming that did not rely on prior presentation of the non-homonym itself. We argue that context-specific interpretations of words are maintained during recognition in order to facilitate comprehension over longer periods.

AB - When a homonym (e.g., bark) is encountered in a sentential context that biases its interpretation towards a less frequent meaning, subsequent interpretations of the word are more likely to favour that subordinate meaning. Such word-meaning priming effects have been shown to be maintained via sleep-related consolidation, leading some to suggest that declarative memory systems play a crucial role in language comprehension, providing a relatively enduring contextually bound memory trace for the ambiguous word. By this account, word-meaning priming effects should be observable for all words, not just homonyms. In three experiments, participants were exposed to non-homonym targets (e.g., "balloon") in sentences that biased interpretation towards a specific aspect of the word's meaning (e.g., balloon‑helium vs. balloon-float). After a ~ 10-30 min delay, the targets were presented in relatedness judgement and associate production tasks to assess whether the sentential contexts enhanced access to the primed aspect of the word's meaning. The results reveal that word-meaning priming effects do extend to non-homonyms. Indeed, there was also some evidence of a more generalised priming that did not rely on prior presentation of the non-homonym itself. We argue that context-specific interpretations of words are maintained during recognition in order to facilitate comprehension over longer periods.

U2 - 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105175

DO - 10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105175

M3 - Article

C2 - 35635890

SN - 0010-0277

VL - 226

JO - Cognition

JF - Cognition

M1 - 105175

ER -