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Abstract:
Most of the research in the area of lexical ambiguity has
focused on the ability of context to restrict activation to a
single meaning consistent with that context. "Context" in this
research has typically referred to information arising from within
a homograph-bearing sentence. Very little attention has be paid to
the fate of meanings after the selection process has been
completed. Our research has examined an aspect of context that has
been largely ignored in prior research: a recent encounter with a
particular homograph. We have obtained evidence from three
different experimental tasks (single-word naming, sentence
verification, and self-paced reading) that suggests that the
processing of one meaning of a homograph leads to the subsequent
inhibition of other meanings. We argue that this inhibition arises
from the need, during discourse comprehension, to avoid activation
of information that is incompatible with that discourse.
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