Type of Document	Dissertation
Author	Madden, Carol Joy
Author's Email Address	madden@psy.fsu.edu
URN	etd-04062004-162600
Title	The Effects of Contextual Constraints on Meaning Selection in the Mental Lexicon
Degree	Doctor of Philosophy
Department	Psychology, Department of
Advisory Committee	Advisor Name Title Rolf A. Zwaan Committee Chair
Keywords	Embodied Cognition Sentence Context Mental Lexicon Lexical Access Perceptual Representations Comprehension Skill Language Comprehension
Date of Defense	2004-03-29
Availability	unrestricted
Abstract In this study, three experiments were conducted to investigate how context affects meaning selection during the comprehension of sentences for more skilled and less skilled comprehenders. In all three experiments, a picture was presented that either matched or mismatched an object’s shape as implied by the preceding sentence context. The pattern of results across the three experiments showed that after a short delay (750ms) both more skilled and less skilled comprehenders had constrained their representations to the contextually appropriate meaning of the target word from the preceding sentence. However only more skilled comprehenders had constrained their representations to the contextually appropriate meaning of the target word immediately upon hearing it in the context of the sentence, whereas less skilled comprehenders required more processing time before the appropriate meaning was activated. These results are comparable to results obtained using homographs, and suggest that the mental lexicon may be comprised of stored instances of each experience with a word or concept, rather than a single stored meaning.
Files	Filename       Size       Approximate Download Time (Hours:Minutes:Seconds)     28.8 Modem   56K Modem   ISDN (64 Kb)   ISDN (128 Kb)   Higher-speed Access    01_cjm_prelims.pdf 73.77 Kb 00:00:20 00:00:10 00:00:09 00:00:04 < 00:00:01   02_cjm_text.pdf 877.36 Kb 00:04:03 00:02:05 00:01:49 00:00:54 00:00:04