Abstract
This paper investigates the effects of meaning dominance in the time-course of activation for ambiguous words out of context in a second language (L2) based on two models: the ordered access model, where the most frequent dominant meaning is always accessed first, and the multiple access model, where dominant and subordinate meanings are activated. Non-native speakers of English (divided into high and low proficiency groups) and native English speakers completed a lexical decision task. While both L2 high and low proficiency groups retrieved multiple meanings of the ambiguous words at different stimulus-onset asynchronies supporting the multiple access model, the move from the ordered access model to the multiple access model was confirmed for the native English speaker group. The findings indicated developmental change of sensitivity to meaning dominance. The results also demonstrated that the rate of facilitation differed among the groups due to slow and more transient L2 activation.
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Notes
The best fitting model did not include the interaction between SOA, Group, and Relatedness, so the author checked the interaction using ANOVA (p = .05).
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Acknowledgements
This study was partly supported by a Grand-in-Aid for Scientific Research (KAKENHI) from the Japan Society for the promotion of Science (No. 18K00780). I would like to thank Robert Deacon and the anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments on earlier versions of this article.
Funding
Funding was provided by Grand-in-Aid for Scientific Research from Japan Society for the promotion of Science (Graqnt No. 18K00780).
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Appendix
Appendix
Experimental materials
Ambiguous word | Unrelated prime | Dominant meaning | Subordinate meaning |
|---|---|---|---|
arm | bus | hand | gun |
bank | south | money | river |
bar | tribe | cocktail | metal |
change | source | constant | coin |
cold | sum | winter | illness |
company | coast | business | friend |
figure | theory | shape | number |
glass | ancestor | eyes | cup |
issue | tower | problem | magazine |
jam | sword | strawberry | traffic |
key | sign | lock | piano |
kid | theme | boy | goat |
nut | hour | almond | bolt |
china | estimate | country | dish |
plane | force | airport | flat |
plant | stream | green | factory |
rest | month | sleep | remainder |
ring | stock | wedding | bell |
sentence | thumb | phrase | punishment |
sheet | feature | paper | bed |
spring | blood | season | jump |
star | shed | planet | actor |
story | autumn | tale | floor |
table | sight | desk | graph |
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Ishida, T. The Effects of Meaning Dominance in the Time-Course of Activation of L2 Lexical Ambiguity Processing. J Psycholinguist Res 48, 1269–1284 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09657-8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-019-09657-8