Abstract
A study of the time required to complete ambiguous sentences suggested that: even though Ss are unaware of the ambiguity while completing sentences, they take more time to complete ambiguous sentences than unambiguous ones: the degree of difficulty in completing ambiguous sentences is related to the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs: sentences containing two ambiguities are more difficult to complete than those containing only one, and when these two ambiguities occur at different linguistic levels, these sentences are harder to complete than when both occur within the same linguistic level: ambiguity may affect the grammaticality and relevance of completions; and may cause stuttering and laughter, even without awareness of the ambiguity. An attempt to fit these results to several theories of the processing of ambiguous sentences led us to the conclusion that ambiguity interferes with our understanding of a single meaning of a sentence, and that the degree of interference varies with the linguistic level at which the ambiguity occurs.
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References
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This work was supported by a contract with the Department of of Defense ARPA 187; NASA grant Ns6496; and an MIT intramural fellowship. The author wishes to thank Dr. H.-L. Teuber. Dr. N. Chomsky and Dr. W. Wickeloren for their excellent suggestions; Dr. T. G. Bever for examining the ambiguities; and the Harvard Center for Cognitive Studies for providing subjects.
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MacKay, D.G. To end ambiguous sentences. Perception & Psychophysics 1, 426–436 (1966). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207422
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207422