Question

(LAN) During a Lexical ambiguity study subjects were told to listen to a sentence while seeing a string of words and say whether the word they are shown is a word or non-word. The subjects heard the sentence "The man was not surprised when he found several spiders, roaches and other bugs (T1) in the corner (T2) of his room. At Times 1 and 2 (T1 and T2) subjects were shown the word "ant", "spy" and "sew". During the first trial subjects were fast to respond for both the words ant and spy but slower to respond for sew. A few 100 ms later they were given the same task and the subjects responded only to "ant" the fastest. Why was the word "spy" not responded to just as fast in the second trial?

A. During the first trial both meanings of the ambiguous word "bug" are activated so response time for spy and ant are fast but after the context is understood during the second trial spy is no longer activated because it does not fit the context and the subjects were slower to respond.
B. Initially in the syntax of sentences the subjects were figuring out words as the heard them, during trial 2 they made a decision about the words meaning in the context of the sentence and where they belong in the syntax.
C. In the first trial the word "bug" activated both spy and ant because the subjects were primed to think of those words but in the second trial the subjects realized the word "spy" was possibly a non-word so their response time decreased.
D. Both A and B are true.

Answer 1

The word "spy" was slower to be responded to in the second trial because, after the context clarified the meaning of "bug" to refer to insects, the activation of the related meaning ("ant") was maintained while the irrelevant meaning ("spy") was no longer activated leading to a slower response time for "spy".

Step-by-step explanation:

The lexical ambiguity study you're referring to investigated how context affects the processing of words with multiple meanings, such as the word "bug", which can refer to an insect (ant) or a covert listening device (spy). The reason why the word "spy" was not responded to as quickly in the second trial can be attributed to the context in which the ambiguous word "bug" was used. Initially, both meanings of "bug" were activated, hence the fast response time for both "ant" and "spy". However, once the context was clarified, only the meaning relevant to insects remained activated.

Option A is the correct explanation. During the first trial, the context had not been established, so the subjects responded quickly to both "ant" and "spy". By the second trial, the context made clear that 'bugs' referred to insects. As a result, the word "spy" was congruent with only one meaning of "bug" and was thus not activated. The activation of the contextually appropriate meaning ("ant") leads to faster response times for that word, while the now irrelevant meaning ("spy") led to slower responses.