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The effects of working memory and speech rate on lexical ambiguity resolution /

Previous studies of how working memory (WM) capacity affects lexical ambiguity resolution have been inconclusive about the choice between inhibition and activation comprehension strategies. In contrast, an adaptive inhibition hypothesis suggests that this choice depends on the availability of WM resources. We used a cross-modal semantic priming paradigm. Participants listened to sentences biasing the subordinate meanings of homonyms, presented at a fast or slow speech rate. We measured lexical decision response latencies to target words that were related to either the subordinate or dominant meaning of homonyms. A WM test was used to evaluate participants' WM capacity. At a fast rate, both high and low WM participants activated dominant (or irrelevant) meanings of the subordinate-biased homonyms. At a regular rate, participants with low WM capacity activated dominant meanings; however, participant with high WM inhibited them. Thus, people with high WM activate and inhibit alternative meanings more flexibly than people with low WM.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.99377
Date January 2006
CreatorsKadulina, Yara.
PublisherMcGill University
Source SetsLibrary and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
TypeElectronic Thesis or Dissertation
Formatapplication/pdf
CoverageMaster of Science (Department of Psychology.)
Rights© Yara Kadulina, 2006
Relationalephsysno: 002572461, proquestno: AAIMR28562, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest.

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