Semantic ambiguity norms for 530 Spanish words

2016 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
pp. 457-475 ◽  
Author(s):  
JUAN HARO ◽  
PILAR FERRÉ ◽  
ROGER BOADA ◽  
JOSEP DEMESTRE
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Age Of Acquisition ◽  
Emotional Valence ◽  
Objective Measures ◽  
Semantic Ambiguity ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Subjective Measures ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Ambiguous Words

ABSTRACTThis study presents semantic ambiguity norms for 530 Spanish words. Two subjective measures of semantic ambiguity and two subjective measures of relatedness of ambiguous word meanings were collected. In addition, two objective measures of semantic ambiguity were included. Furthermore, subjective ratings were obtained for some relevant lexicosemantic variables, such as concreteness, familiarity, emotional valence, arousal, and age of acquisition. In sum, the database overcomes some of the limitations of the published databases of Spanish ambiguous words; in particular, the scarcity of measures of ambiguity, the lack of relatedness of ambiguous word meanings measures, and the absence of a set of unambiguous words. Thus, it will be very helpful for researchers interested in exploring semantic ambiguity as well as for those using semantic ambiguous words to study language processing in clinical populations.

scholarly journals The relationship between sentence comprehension and lexical-semantic retuning

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Anne Gilbert ◽  
Matthew H. Davis ◽  
M. Gareth Gaskell ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Subordinate Meaning ◽  
Final Interpretation ◽  
The Relationship

A single encounter with an ambiguous word (e.g. bark, ball) in the context of a less-frequent meaning (e.g. “Sally worried about how crowded the ball would be.”) can shift the later interpretation of the word toward the same subordinate meaning. This lexical-semantic retuning functions to improve future comprehension of ambiguous words. The present paper investigates the relationship between this form of learning and the specific processes that occur during sentence comprehension. One possibility is that lexical-semantic retuning occurs immediately upon hearing the ambiguous word, during initial meaning activation and selection, so priming should be strongest when the disambiguating context is provided before the ambiguous word (prior disambiguation). Alternatively, priming may relate to the degree of reinterpretation needed, which would predict maximal learning when the word is initially misunderstood because the critical context is given after the word (subsequent disambiguation, e.g. “Sally worried that the ball would be too crowded.”). In four experiments, adults listened to prior and subsequent disambiguation sentences, and were later tested on their interpretations of primed and unprimed ambiguous words. The results showed that lexical-semantic retuning can occur for both sentence types. Importantly, however, the emergence of priming for subsequent disambiguation sentences was sensitive to the prime conditions: when the task could potentially be performed without needing to re-analyse the ambiguity, then no significant priming was observed. This is consistent with the ‘good enough’ view of language processing which states that representations can remain as (im)precise as mandated by the situation, and that lexical-semantic retuning operates on the output of good-enough interpretation. More generally, our findings suggest that lexical-semantic retuning is driven by participants’ final interpretation of the word meanings during the prime encounter, regardless of initial meaning activation or misinterpretation.

Emotionality effects in ambiguous word recognition: The crucial role of the affective congruence between distinct meanings of ambiguous words

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182199000
Author(s):  
Pilar Ferré ◽  
Juan Haro ◽  
Daniel Huete-Pérez ◽  
Isabel Fraga
Keyword(s):  
Word Processing ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Semantic Ambiguity ◽  
Negative Valence ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Positive Valence ◽  
Affective Meanings ◽  
Valence Effect ◽  
Affective Word

There is substantial evidence that affectively charged words (e.g., party or gun) are processed differently from neutral words (e.g., pen), although there are also inconsistent findings in the field. Some lexical or semantic variables might explain such inconsistencies, due to the possible modulation of affective word processing by these variables. The aim of the present study was to examine the extent to which affective word processing is modulated by semantic ambiguity. We conducted a large lexical decision study including semantically ambiguous words (e.g., cataract) and semantically unambiguous words (e.g., terrorism), analysing the extent to which reaction times (RTs) were influenced by their affective properties. The findings revealed a valence effect in which positive valence made RTs faster, whereas negative valence slowed them. The valence effect diminished as the semantic ambiguity of words increased. This decrease did not affect all ambiguous words, but was observed mainly in ambiguous words with incongruent affective meanings. These results highlight the need to consider the affective properties of the distinct meanings of ambiguous words in research on affective word processing.

scholarly journals Relationships Among Subjective and Objective Measures of Tongue Strength and Oral Phase Swallowing Impairments

2003 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather M. Clark ◽  
Pamela A. Henson ◽  
William D. Barber ◽  
Julie A. G. Stierwalt ◽  
Michael Sherrill
Keyword(s):  
Objective Measures ◽  
Tongue Strength ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Subjective Measures ◽  
Swallowing Function ◽  
Clinical Method ◽  
The Relationship

A growing literature documents the relationship between tongue strength and oral phase swallowing function. Objective measures of strength have been recommended as more valid and reliable than subjective measures for the assessment of tongue function, yet subjective measures remain the more commonly used clinical method for assessing tongue strength. This study assessed the relationships among subjective and objective measures of tongue strength and oral phase swallowing impairments. Both subjective and objective measures of tongue strength were observed to be good predictors of the presence of oral phase swallowing impairments. The specific oral phase swallowing functions of bolus manipulation, mastication, and clearance were moderately correlated with subjective ratings of tongue strength. Experienced and inexperienced raters appeared to judge tongue strength differently, with the ratings of experienced raters being more predictive of swallowing function.

Influence of Context on the Activation and Selection of Ambiguous Word Senses

1983 ◽  
Vol 35 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-64 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregg C. Oden ◽  
James L. Spira
Keyword(s):  
Language Processing ◽  
Accurate Determination ◽  
Processing System ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Word Sense ◽  
Semantic Constraints ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Word Senses ◽  
Selection Of

The activation of ambiguous word senses was investigated by measuring the amount of interference in naming the ink color of a word that was either related or unrelated to one of the meanings of a preceding ambiguous word. In agreement with previous results obtained using this procedure (Conrad, 1974), evidence was obtained that both meanings of the ambiguous words are activated even in the presence of biasing context. However, contrary to previous findings, the degree of activation of each word sense depended on its degree of compatibility with the context. These results are consistent with a language processing system in which all interpretations of an ambiguity are accessed and then processed until an accurate determination has been made of which interpretation best satisfies the syntactic and semantic constraints that govern it.

Word Sense Disambiguation for Improving the Quality of Machine Translation

2014 ◽  
Vol 981 ◽  
pp. 153-156
Author(s):  
Chun Xiang Zhang ◽  
Long Deng ◽  
Xue Yao Gao ◽  
Li Li Guo
Keyword(s):  
Machine Translation ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Word Sense Disambiguation ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Translation System ◽  
Word Sense ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Sense Disambiguation ◽  
Machine Translation System

Word sense disambiguation is key to many application problems in natural language processing. In this paper, a specific classifier of word sense disambiguation is introduced into machine translation system in order to improve the quality of the output translation. Firstly, translation of ambiguous word is deleted from machine translation of Chinese sentence. Secondly, ambiguous word is disambiguated and the classification labels are translations of ambiguous word. Thirdly, these two translations are combined. 50 Chinese sentences including ambiguous words are collected for test experiments. Experimental results show that the translation quality is improved after the proposed method is applied.

scholarly journals Retuning of lexical-semantic representations: Repetition and spacing effects in word-meaning priming.

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hannah Betts ◽  
Rebecca Anne Gilbert ◽  
Zhenguang Garry Cai ◽  
Zainab B. Okedara ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Network ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Stable State ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Semantic Representations ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Spacing Effects ◽  
Ambiguous Words

Current models of word-meaning access typically assume that lexical-semantic representations of ambiguous words (e.g. ‘bark of the dog/tree’) reach a relatively stable state in adulthood, with only the relative frequencies of the meanings in the language and immediate sentence context determining meaning preference. However, recent experience also affects interpretation: recently-encountered word-meanings become more readily available (Rodd et al., 2016; 2013). Here, three experiments investigated how multiple encounters with word-meanings influence the subsequent interpretation of these words. Participants heard ambiguous words contextually-disambiguated towards a particular meaning and, after a 20-30 minute delay, interpretations of the words were tested in isolation. We replicate the finding that one encounter with an ambiguous word biased later interpretation of this word towards the primed meaning for both subordinate (Experiments 1, 2, 3) and dominant meanings (Experiment 1). In addition, for the first time, we show cumulative effects of multiple repetitions of both the same and different meanings. The effect of a single subordinate exposure persisted after a subsequent encounter with the dominant meaning, compared to a dominant exposure alone (Experiment 1). Furthermore, three subordinate word-meaning repetitions provided an additional boost to priming compared to one, although only when their presentation was spaced (Experiments 2, 3); massed repetitions provided no such boost (Experiments 1, 3). These findings indicate that comprehension is guided by the collective effect of multiple recently activated meanings and that the spacing of these activations is key to producing lasting updates to the lexical-semantic network.

scholarly journals The Neural Time Course of Semantic Ambiguity Resolution in Speech Comprehension

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-425 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucy J. MacGregor ◽  
Jennifer M. Rodd ◽  
Rebecca A. Gilbert ◽  
Olaf Hauk ◽  
Ediz Sohoglu ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Ambiguity Resolution ◽  
Sentence Comprehension ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Neural Response ◽  
Semantic Integration ◽  
Speech Comprehension ◽  
Semantic Ambiguity ◽  
Positive Correlation ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Subordinate Meaning

Semantically ambiguous words challenge speech comprehension, particularly when listeners must select a less frequent (subordinate) meaning at disambiguation. Using combined magnetoencephalography (MEG) and EEG, we measured neural responses associated with distinct cognitive operations during semantic ambiguity resolution in spoken sentences: (i) initial activation and selection of meanings in response to an ambiguous word and (ii) sentence reinterpretation in response to subsequent disambiguation to a subordinate meaning. Ambiguous words elicited an increased neural response approximately 400–800 msec after their acoustic offset compared with unambiguous control words in left frontotemporal MEG sensors, corresponding to sources in bilateral frontotemporal brain regions. This response may reflect increased demands on processes by which multiple alternative meanings are activated and maintained until later selection. Disambiguating words heard after an ambiguous word were associated with marginally increased neural activity over bilateral temporal MEG sensors and a central cluster of EEG electrodes, which localized to similar bilateral frontal and left temporal regions. This later neural response may reflect effortful semantic integration or elicitation of prediction errors that guide reinterpretation of previously selected word meanings. Across participants, the amplitude of the ambiguity response showed a marginal positive correlation with comprehension scores, suggesting that sentence comprehension benefits from additional processing around the time of an ambiguous word. Better comprehenders may have increased availability of subordinate meanings, perhaps due to higher quality lexical representations and reflected in a positive correlation between vocabulary size and comprehension success.

scholarly journals Listeners and Readers Generalise Their Experience With Word Meanings Across Modalities

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Anne Gilbert ◽  
Matthew H. Davis ◽  
M. Gareth Gaskell ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Priming Effect ◽  
Word Association ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Semantic Relatedness ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Subordinate Meaning ◽  
Target Words

Research has shown that adults’ lexical-semantic representations are surprisingly malleable. For instance, the interpretation of ambiguous words (e.g. bark) is influenced by experience such that recently encountered meanings become more readily available (Rodd et al., 2016, 2013). However the mechanism underlying this word-meaning priming effect remains unclear, and competing accounts make different predictions about the extent to which information about word meanings that is gained within one modality (e.g. speech) is transferred to the other modality (e.g. reading) to aid comprehension. In two web-based experiments, ambiguous target words were primed with either written or spoken sentences that biased their interpretation toward a subordinate meaning, or were unprimed. About 20 minutes after the prime exposure, interpretation of these target words was tested by presenting them in either written or spoken form, using word association (Experiment 1, N=78) and speeded semantic relatedness decisions (Experiment 2, N=181). Both experiments replicated the auditory unimodal priming effect shown previously (Rodd et al., 2016, 2013) and revealed significant cross-modal priming: primed meanings were retrieved more frequently and swiftly across all primed conditions compared to the unprimed baseline. Furthermore, there were no reliable differences in priming levels between unimodal and cross-modal prime-test conditions. These results indicate that recent experience with ambiguous word meanings can bias the reader’s or listener’s later interpretation of these words in a modality-general way. We identify possible loci of this effect within the context of models of long-term priming and ambiguity resolution.

scholarly journals Using Behavioral Realism to Estimate Presence: A Study of the Utility of Postural Responses to Motion Stimuli

2000 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 149-164 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Freeman ◽  
S. E. Avons ◽  
Ray Meddis ◽  
Don E. Pearson ◽  
Wijnand IJsselsteijn
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Video Sequence ◽  
Objective Measures ◽  
Subjective Ratings ◽  
Subjective Measures ◽  
Behavioral Measures ◽  
The Real ◽  
Sense Of Presence ◽  
Postural Responses ◽  
Positive Effect

We recently reported that direct subjective ratings of the sense of presence are potentially unstable and can be biased by previous judgments of the same stimuli (Freeman et al., 1999). Objective measures of the behavioral realism elicited by a display offer an alternative to subjective ratings. Behavioral measures and presence are linked by the premise that, when observers experience a mediated environment (VE or broadcast) that makes them feel present, they will respond to stimuli within the environment as they would to stimuli in the real world. The experiment presented here measured postural responses to a video sequence filmed from the hood of a car traversing a rally track, using stereoscopic and monoscopic presentation. Results demonstrated a positive effect of stereoscopic presentation on the magnitude of postural responses elicited. Posttest subjective ratings of presence, vection, and involvement were also higher for stereoscopically presented stimuli. The postural and subjective measures were not significantly correlated, indicating that nonproprioceptive postural responses are unlikely to provide accurate estimates of presence. Such postural responses may prove useful for the evaluation of displays for specific applications and in the corroboration of group subjective ratings of presence, but cannot be taken in place of subjective ratings.

scholarly journals Learning about the Meanings of Ambiguous Words: Evidence from a Word-Meaning Priming Paradigm with Short Narratives

2022 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lena Maria Blott ◽  
Oliver Hartopp ◽  
Kate Nation ◽  
Jennifer M Rodd
Keyword(s):  
Word Association ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Digit Span ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Ambiguous Word ◽  
Recent Experience ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
River Bank ◽  
Ambiguous Words ◽  
Priming Paradigm

Fluent language comprehension requires readers and listeners to rapidly select an appropriate meaning for each word that they encounter. This meaning selection process is particularly challenging when low-frequency (subordinate) word meanings are used (e.g. the “river bank” meaning of “bank”). Recent word-meaning priming experiments show that recent experience can help to make subordinate word meanings more readily available, and thereby reduce the difficulty in accessing these meanings. One limitation of previous word-meaning priming experiments is that participants encounter the ambiguous words within a list of unconnected single sentences in which each ambiguous word is strongly disambiguated by words within the prime sentence. The current web-based study (N=51) extends this work to replicate word-meaning priming using short 3-sentence narratives as primes in which relatively weak contextual cues in sentence 1 serve to disambiguate a target ambiguous word that occurs in sentence 3. The results from the subsequent word-association test task confirmed that following a short delay (digit span) task the primed (subordinate) meanings were more readily available compared with an unprimed control. This work represents an important first step in moving the word-meaning priming paradigm towards materials that more reflect the varied ways in which ambiguous words are used within natural language.

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