Word-meaning priming extends beyond homonyms

Word association task responses prime associations in subsequent trials

The word association task has been used extensively in psychological and linguistic research as a way of measuring connections between words in the mental lexicon. Interpretation of word association data has assumed that responses represent the strongest association between cue word and response, but there is evidence that participant behaviour can be affected by task instructions and design. This study investigated whether word association responses can be primed by the participants' own response to the preceding cue-that is, whether the order in which cues are presented alters the responses that are generated. Results showed that the proportion of participants who provide a particular association (e.g., acid-RAIN) is greater when their response to the previous cue in the list is also associated with rain (e.g., parasol-UMBRELLA). The same is not true when the two cues are presented non-consecutively. Word association tasks should be administered such that the order in which cues are presented is random for every participant so as to avoid unintentional contamination of associative strength data.

Consolidation improves the learning of new meanings for known words but not necessarily their integration into semantic memory

Consolidation is essential to the integration of novel words into the mental lexicon; however, its role in learning new meanings for known words remains unclear. This old-form-new-meaning learning is very common, as when one learns that "skate" is also a type of fish in addition to its familiar roller- or ice-skating meaning. To address consolidation effects for new meanings, we compared the behavioral and ERP measures on new and original meanings tested 24 hours after learning with words tested immediately after learning. Semantic judgments of both new and original meanings benefitted from the study-test interval. However, N400 amplitudes on studied words-indicators of meaning access from semantic memory-were unaffected by learning or consolidation. These results suggest that while sleep benefits memory for new meanings, the new meanings do not become integrated into the mental lexicon within that period. Instead, episodic retrieval remains functional in accessing new meanings even after 24 hours.

Diversity of narrative context disrupts the early stage of learning the meanings of novel words

High quality lexical representations develop through repeated exposures to words in different contexts. This preregistered experiment investigated how diversity of narrative context affects the earliest stages of word learning via reading. Adults (N = 100) learned invented meanings for eight pseudowords, which each occurred in five written paragraphs either within a single coherent narrative context or five different narrative contexts. The words' semantic features were controlled across conditions to avoid influences from polysemy (lexical ambiguity). Posttests included graded measures of word-form recall (spelling accuracy) and recognition (multiple choice), and word-meaning recall (number of semantic features). Diversity of narrative context did not affect word-form learning, but more semantic features were correctly recalled for words trained in a single context. These findings indicate that learning the meanings of novel words is initially boosted by anchoring them to a single coherent narrative discourse.

Learning about the meanings of ambiguous words: evidence from a word-meaning priming paradigm with short narratives

Fluent language comprehension requires people to rapidly activate and integrate context-appropriate word meanings. This process is challenging for meanings of ambiguous words that are comparatively lower in frequency (e.g., the "bird" meaning of "crane"). Priming experiments have shown that recent experience makes such subordinate (less frequent) word meanings more readily available at the next encounter. These experiments used lists of unconnected sentences in which each ambiguity was disambiguated locally by neighbouring words. In natural language, however, disambiguation may occur via more distant contextual cues, embedded in longer, connected communicative contexts. In the present experiment, participants (N = 51) listened to 3-sentence narratives that ended in an ambiguous prime. Cues to disambiguation were relatively distant from the prime; the first sentence of each narrative established a situational context congruent with the subordinate meaning of the prime, but the remainder of the narrative did not provide disambiguating information. Following a short delay, primed subordinate meanings were more readily available (compared with an unprimed control), as assessed by responses in a word association task related to the primed meaning. This work confirms that listeners reliably disambiguate spoken ambiguous words on the basis of cues from wider narrative contexts, and that they retain information about the outcome of these disambiguation processes to inform subsequent encounters of the same word form.