TY - JOUR
T1 - Children's use of language context in lexical ambiguity resolution
AU - Khanna, Maya M.
AU - Boland, Julie E.
N1 - Funding Information:
Correspondence should be addressed to Maya M. Khanna, Department of Psychology, Creighton University, 2500 California Plaza, Omaha, NE 68178, USA. E-mail: MayaKhanna@Creighton.edu The studies reported within this article are based on the first author’s (M.M.K.’s) dissertation studies that were completed in partial fulfilment of the PhD from the University of Michigan. These studies were supported by dissertation fellowships from the Rackham Graduate School and the Psychology Department at the University of Michigan. We would like to thank the members of M.M.K.’s dissertation committee, Thad A. Polk, David E. Meyer, Frederick J. Morrison, and Patrice Beddor, whose comments and support helped with the interpretation of the findings. We would also like to thank the Charleston County School district and the Boys and Girls Clubs of the Trident Area for allowing M.M.K. to work with their students on these projects. In particular, we would like to thank Reverend Christian King, Lori Fleming, Tiffany Agee, Steve Kugelman, Sharon Dale, Leslie Mackey, and Thomas Slawson for aiding in the coordination of these studies in the Charleston, South Carolina area.
PY - 2010/1
Y1 - 2010/1
N2 - Lexical ambiguity resolution was examined in children aged 7 to 10 years and adults. In Experiment 1, participants heard sentences supporting one (or neither) meaning of a balanced ambiguous word in a cross-modal naming paradigm. Naming latencies for context-congruent versus context-incongruent targets and judgements of the relatedness of targets to the sentence served as indices of appropriate context use. While younger children were faster to respond to related targets regardless of the sentence context, older children and adults showed priming only for context-appropriate targets. In Experiment 2, only a single-word context preceded the homophone, and in contrast to Experiment 1, all groups showed contextual sensitivity. Individual working-memory span and inhibition ability were also measured in Experiment 2, and more mature executive function abilities were associated with greater contextual sensitivity. These findings support a developmental model whereby sentential context use for lexical ambiguity resolution increases with age, cognitive processing capacity, and reading skill.
AB - Lexical ambiguity resolution was examined in children aged 7 to 10 years and adults. In Experiment 1, participants heard sentences supporting one (or neither) meaning of a balanced ambiguous word in a cross-modal naming paradigm. Naming latencies for context-congruent versus context-incongruent targets and judgements of the relatedness of targets to the sentence served as indices of appropriate context use. While younger children were faster to respond to related targets regardless of the sentence context, older children and adults showed priming only for context-appropriate targets. In Experiment 2, only a single-word context preceded the homophone, and in contrast to Experiment 1, all groups showed contextual sensitivity. Individual working-memory span and inhibition ability were also measured in Experiment 2, and more mature executive function abilities were associated with greater contextual sensitivity. These findings support a developmental model whereby sentential context use for lexical ambiguity resolution increases with age, cognitive processing capacity, and reading skill.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=77649125887&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=77649125887&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1080/17470210902866664
DO - 10.1080/17470210902866664
M3 - Article
C2 - 19424907
AN - SCOPUS:77649125887
VL - 63
SP - 160
EP - 193
JO - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
JF - Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
SN - 1747-0218
IS - 1
ER -