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Strength of Discourse Context as a Determinant of the Subordinate Bias Effect

Two experiments examined the influence of strength of discourse bias on lexical ambiguity resolution. Short passages were constructed to bias polarized ambiguous words (homonyms) strongly or weakly toward the dominant or subordinate meanings. Using a self-paced reading task in Experiment 1, it was demonstrated that in strongly biased discourse, reading times for homonyms in dominant discourse did not differ from those in subordinate discourse. However, when the discourse was weakly biased, homonyms were read faster in dominant discourse than in subordinate discourse. Experiment 2 combined the reading paradigm with a naming task in order to provide an assessment of specific word-meaning activation. Reading times on ambiguous words replicated the results of Experiment 1. In addition, naming latencies for probe words revealed that only the contextually appropriate sense of a homonym was activated in strongly biased discourse. In contrast, both contextually appropriate and inappropriate senses were activated following a weakly biased subordinate discourse, whereas only the dominant sense was activated following weakly biased dominant discourse. The results demonstrate (1) an immediate influence of prior discourse information on lexical processing; and (2) that the strength of discourse constraints can play a governing role in lexical ambiguity resolution. The results were interpreted within the framework of a context-sensitive model of lexical ambiguity resolution.