Department of Experimental Psychology, University College London.
Perspect Psychol Sci. 2020 Mar;15(2):411-427. doi: 10.1177/1745691619885860. Epub 2020 Jan 21.
Most words are ambiguous: Individual word forms (e.g., ) can map onto multiple different interpretations depending on their sentence context (e.g., the athlete/politician/river ). Models of word-meaning access must therefore explain how listeners and readers can rapidly settle on a single, contextually appropriate meaning for each word that they encounter. I present a new account of word-meaning access that places semantic disambiguation at its core and integrates evidence from a wide variety of experimental approaches to explain this key aspect of language comprehension. The model has three key characteristics. (a) Lexical-semantic knowledge is viewed as a high-dimensional space; familiar word meanings correspond to stable states within this lexical-semantic space. (b) Multiple linguistic and paralinguistic cues can influence the settling process by which the system resolves on one of these familiar meanings. (c) Learning mechanisms play a vital role in facilitating rapid word-meaning access by shaping and maintaining high-quality lexical-semantic knowledge throughout the life span. In contrast to earlier models of word-meaning access, I highlight individual differences in lexical-semantic knowledge: Each person's lexicon is uniquely structured by specific, idiosyncratic linguistic experiences.
单个词形（例如）可以根据其句子上下文映射到多个不同的解释（例如，运动员/政治家/河流）。因此，词的意义获取模型必须解释听众和读者如何能够快速确定他们遇到的每个词的单个、上下文适当的含义。我提出了一种新的词的意义获取解释，将语义消歧置于核心位置，并整合了来自各种实验方法的证据，以解释语言理解的这一关键方面。该模型有三个关键特征。(a) 词汇语义知识被视为一个高维空间；熟悉的词义对应于这个词汇语义空间中的稳定状态。(b) 多种语言和副语言线索可以通过影响系统确定这些熟悉词义之一的定居过程来产生影响。(c) 学习机制通过在整个生命周期中塑造和维持高质量的词汇语义知识，在促进快速的词的意义获取方面发挥着至关重要的作用。与早期的词的意义获取模型相比，我强调了词汇语义知识的个体差异：每个人的词汇都是由特定的、独特的语言经验独特地构建的。
