Disambiguating form and lexical frequency effects in MEG responses using homonyms

Dylan Alexander Simon, Gwyneth Lewis, Alec Marantz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We present an MEG study of homonym recognition in reading, identifying effects of a semantic measure of homonym ambiguity. This measure sheds light on two competing theories of lexical access: the "early access" theory, which entails that lexical access occurs at early (pre 200 ms) stages of processing; and the "late access" theory, which interprets this early activity as orthographic wordform identifcation rather than genuine lexical access. A correlational analysis method was employed to examine effects of the lexical frequencies of distinct words that share the same orthography (homographs) on brain activity. We find that lexical frequency did not affect processing until after 300 ms, while earlier activation was primarily modulated by orthographic form frequency.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)275-287
Number of pages13
JournalLanguage and Cognitive Processes
Volume27
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Feb 2012

Keywords

  • Homonym
  • Lexical access
  • MEG
  • Visual word recognition

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Experimental and Cognitive Psychology
  • Language and Linguistics
  • Education
  • Linguistics and Language

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Disambiguating form and lexical frequency effects in MEG responses using homonyms'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this