Contextual diversity, not word frequency, determines word-naming and lexical decision times

Word frequency is an important predictor of word-naming and lexical decision times. It is, however, confounded with contextual diversity, the number of contexts in which a word has been seen. In a study using a normative, corpus-based measure of contextual diversity, word-frequency effects were eliminated when effects of contextual diversity were taken into account (but not vice versa) across three naming and three lexical decision data sets; the same pattern of results was obtained regardless of which of three corpora was used to derive the frequency and contextual-diversity values. The results are incompatible with existing models of visual word recognition, which attribute frequency effects directly to frequency, and are particularly problematic for accounts in which frequency effects reflect learning. We argue that the results reflect the importance of likely need in memory processes, and that the continuity between reading and memory suggests using principles from memory research to inform theories of reading

The meaning of “life” and other abstract words: Insights from neuropsychology

There are a number of long‐standing theories on how the cognitive processing of abstract words, like ‘life’, differs from that of concrete words, like ‘knife’. This review considers current perspectives on this debate, focusing particularly on insights obtained from patients with language disorders and integrating these with evidence from functional neuroimaging studies. The evidence supports three distinct and mutually compatible hypotheses. (1) Concrete and abstract words differ in their representational substrates, with concrete words depending particularly on sensory experiences and abstract words on linguistic, emotional, and magnitude‐based information. Differential dependence on visual versus verbal experience is supported by the evidence for graded specialization in the anterior temporal lobes for concrete versus abstract words. In addition, concrete words have richer representations, in line with better processing of these words in most aphasic patients and, in particular, patients with semantic dementia. (2) Abstract words place greater demands on executive regulation processes because they have variable meanings that change with context. This theory explains abstract word impairments in patients with semantic‐executive deficits and is supported by neuroimaging studies showing greater response to abstract words in inferior prefrontal cortex. (3) The relationships between concrete words are governed primarily by conceptual similarity, while those of abstract words depend on association to a greater degree. This theory, based primarily on interference and priming effects in aphasic patients, is the most recent to emerge and the least well understood. I present analyses indicating that patterns of lexical co‐occurrence may be important in understanding these effects

Relative meaning frequencies for 100 homonyms: British eDom norms

This data set contains British-English ratings of meaning frequencies for 100 homonyms, i.e., words with multiple unrelated meanings (e.g., “money/river bank”). The homonyms were carefully selected based on linguistic principles, dictionary entries, and subjective ratings, and were validated for future studies examining meaning-frequency effects on homonym processing. Meaning frequencies were rated by 100 native British-English speakers (living throughout the UK) using the eDom norming procedure. The norms are available at http://osf.io/7k3eh/

The cost of learning new meanings for familiar words

Research has shown that adults are highly skilled at learning new words and meanings. Here, we examined whether learning new meanings for familiar words affects the processing of their existing meanings. In Experiments 1 and 2, adult participants learnt new, fictitious meanings for previously unambiguous words (e.g., “sip” denoting a small amount of computer data) through four 30-minute training sessions completed over four consecutive days. We tested participants’ comprehension of existing meanings before and after training using a semantic relatedness decision task in which the probe word was related to the existing but not the new meaning of the trained word (e.g., “sip-juice”). Following the training, responses were slower to the trained, but not to the untrained, words, indicating competition between newly-acquired and well-established meanings. Furthermore, consistent with studies of semantic ambiguity, the effect was smaller for meanings that were semantically related to existing meanings than for the unrelated counterparts, demonstrating that meaning relatedness modulates the degree of competition. Overall, the key findings confirm that new word meanings can be integrated into the mental lexicon after just a few days’ exposure, and provide support for current models of ambiguity that predict semantic competition in word comprehension.</p