Turning an advantage into a disadvantage: Ambiguity effects in lexical decision versus reading tasks

Abstract

When performing a lexical decision task, participants can correctly categorize letter strings as words faster if they have multiple meanings (i.e., ambiguous words) than if they have one meaning (i.e., unambiguous words). In contrast, when reading connected text, participants tend to fixate longer on ambiguous words than on unambiguous words. Why are ambiguous words at an advantage in one word recognition task, and at a disadvantage in another? These disparate results can be reconciled if it is assumed that ambiguous words are relatively fast to reach a semantic-blend state sufficient for supporting lexical decisions, but then slow to escape the blend when the task requires a specific meaning be retrieved. We report several experiments that support this possibility.