A comparison of homonym meaning frequency estimates derived from movie and television subtitles, free association, and explicit ratings

First Online: 10 September 2018Most words are ambiguous, with interpretation dependent on context. Advancing theories of ambiguity resolution is important for any general theory of language processing, and for resolving inconsistencies in observed ambiguity effects across experimental tasks. Focusing on homonyms (words such as bank with unrelated meanings EDGE OF A RIVER vs. FINANCIAL INSTITUTION), the present work advances theories and methods for estimating the relative frequency of their meanings, a factor that shapes observed ambiguity effects. We develop a new method for estimating meaning frequency based on the meaning of a homonym evoked in lines of movie and television subtitles according to human raters. We also replicate and extend a measure of meaning frequency derived from the classification of free associates. We evaluate the internal consistency of these measures, compare them to published estimates based on explicit ratings of each meaning’s frequency, and compare each set of norms in predicting performance in lexical and semantic decision mega-studies. All measures have high internal consistency and show agreement, but each is also associated with unique variance, which may be explained by integrating cognitive theories of memory with the demands of different experimental methodologies. To derive frequency estimates, we collected manual classifications of 533 homonyms over 50,000 lines of subtitles, and of 357 homonyms across over 5000 homonym–associate pairs. This database—publicly available at: www.blairarmstrong.net/homonymnorms/—constitutes a novel resource for computational cognitive modeling and computational linguistics, and we offer suggestions around good practices for its use in training and testing models on labeled data

Verb Bias in Mandarin Relative Clause Processing

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Speech monitoring and phonologically-mediated eye gaze in language perception and production: a comparison using printed word eye-tracking

The Perceptual Loop Theory of speech monitoring assumes that speakers routinely inspect their inner speech. In contrast, Huettig and Hartsuiker (2010) observed that listening to one's own speech during language production drives eye-movements to phonologically related printed words with a similar time-course as listening to someone else's speech does in speech perception experiments. This suggests that speakers use their speech perception system to listen to their own overt speech, but not to their inner speech. However, a direct comparison between production and perception with the same stimuli and participants is lacking so far. The current printed word eye-tracking experiment therefore used a within-subjects design, combining production and perception. Displays showed four words, of which one, the target, either had to be named or was presented auditorily. Accompanying words were phonologically related, semantically related, or unrelated to the target. There were small increases in looks to phonological competitors with a similar time-course in both production and perception. Phonological effects in perception however lasted longer and had a much larger magnitude. We conjecture that this difference is related to a difference in predictability of one's own and someone else's speech, which in turn has consequences for lexical competition in other-perception and possibly suppression of activation in self-perception

Some Ontological Principles for Designing Upper Level Lexical Resources

The purpose of this paper is to explore some semantic problems related to the use of linguistic ontologies in information systems, and to suggest some organizing principles aimed to solve such problems. The taxonomic structure of current ontologies is unfortunately quite complicated and hard to understand, especially for what concerns the upper levels. I will focus here on the problem of ISA overloading, which I believe is the main responsible of these difficulties. To this purpose, I will carefully analyze the ontological nature of the categories used in current upper-level structures, considering the necessity of splitting them according to more subtle distinctions or the opportunity of excluding them because of their limited organizational role.Comment: 8 pages - gzipped postscript file - A4 forma

The distractor frequency effect in picture–word interference: evidence for response exclusion

In 3 experiments, subjects named pictures with low- or high-frequency superimposed distractor words. In a 1st experiment, we replicated the finding that low-frequency words induce more interference in picture naming than high-frequency words (i.e., distractor frequency effect; Miozzo & Caramazza, 2003). According to the response exclusion hypothesis, this effect has its origin at a postlexical stage and is related to a response buffer. The account predicts that the distractor frequency effect should only be present when a response to the word enters the response buffer. This was tested by masking the distractor (Experiment 2) and by presenting it at various time points before stimulus onset (Experiment 3). Results supported the hypothesis by showing that the effect was only present when distractors were visible, and if they were presented in close proximity to the target picture. These results have implications for the models of lexical access and for the tasks that can be used to study this process

The mechanism underlying backward priming in a lexical decision task: Spreading activation versus semantic matching

Koriat (1981) demonstrated that an association from the target to a preceding prime, in the absence of an association from the prime to the target, facilitates lexical decision and referred to this effect as "backward priming". Backward priming is of relevance, because it can provide information about the mechanism underlying semantic priming effects. Following Neely (1991), we distinguish three mechanisms of priming: spreading activation, expectancy, and semantic matching/integration. The goal was to determine which of these mechanisms causes backward priming, by assessing effects of backward priming on a language-relevant ERP component, the N400, and reaction time (RT). Based on previous work, we propose that the N400 priming effect reflects expectancy and semantic matching/integration, but in contrast with RT does not reflect spreading activation. Experiment 1 shows a backward priming effect that is qualitatively similar for the N400 and RT in a lexical decision task. This effect was not modulated by an ISI manipulation. Experiment 2 clarifies that the N400 backward priming effect reflects genuine changes in N400 amplitude and cannot be ascribed to other factors. We will argue that these backward priming effects cannot be due to expectancy but are best accounted for in terms of semantic matching/integration