Perception of polysemy

• A seldom expressed assumption in word comprehension studies, that words have invariant semantic qualities, was tested in three experiments. The first experiment showed that subjects produced different interpretations from polysemous words. There always, however, seemed to be a most frequent representation. In the second experiment subjects rated degree of polysemy and a striking jump was found in the transition from two to three meanings in a polysemous word. The third experiment also tested perceived degree of polysemy but with the additionof objective frequency and syntactic category as independent variables. A theoretically predicted tripleinteraction was confirmed. It is conecluded that the phenomenon of polysemy has to bee incorporated in research on word perception and comprehension. Theoretical alternatiwes for representation of polysemous and homonymous words are presented. The invariance hypothesisin word comprehension is finally recommended to be substitutedby a variance hypothesis.

Subject headings

SAMHÄLLSVETENSKAP  -- Utbildningsvetenskap (hsv//swe)

SOCIAL SCIENCES  -- Educational Sciences (hsv//eng)

Publication and Content Type

vet (subject category)

rap (subject category)