Eye movements and lexical ambiguity resolution: effects of prior encounter and discourse topic

Abstract

Eye movements were monitored as participants read passages that contained 2 occurrences of a balanced ambiguous word. In Experiment 1, local context was manipulated so that the meaning of the ambiguous word either remained the same or changed from the 1st to 2nd encounter. In Experiments 2 and 3. global context was manipulated by shifting the discourse topic between the 2 instances of the ambiguous word. Gaze durations on the 2nd instance of the ambiguous word were shorter when the meaning remained consistent than when the meaning changed, and this facilitation was impervious to changes in the discourse structure. In contrast, processing time in the region immediately following the target was longer when the word meaning changed, but only when the topic of the discourse remained the same throughout the passage. When the topic was shifted, this effect disappeared.