Age of acquisition estimates for 1,208 ambiguous and polysemous words

Khanna, Maya M.; Cortese, Michael J.

doi:10.3758/s13428-010-0027-y

Cited by 11 publications

(11 citation statements)

References 25 publications

(42 reference statements)

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“…We found reasonable consistency between individual participants and the mean ratings (r 0 .70, SE 0 .01, range 0 .41 − .85). This consistency is comparable to that reported in a similar task in which participants rated the age of acquisition of each meaning of an ambiguous word (Khanna & Cortese, 2011). This provides initial support for the reliability of these norms and of their relative invariance to the particular set of words that form the context in which participants generate ratings.…”

Section: Characteristics Of the Norms And Implications For Studies Thsupporting

confidence: 67%

eDom: Norming software and relative meaning frequencies for 544 English homonyms

2012

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Words that are homonyms-that is, for which a single written and spoken form is associated with multiple, unrelated interpretations, such as COMPOUND, which can denote an or a meaning-are an invaluable class of items for studying word and discourse comprehension. When using homonyms as stimuli, it is critical to control for the relative frequencies of each interpretation, because this variable can drastically alter the empirical effects of homonymy. Currently, the standard method for estimating these frequencies is based on the classification of free associates generated for a homonym, but this approach is both assumption-laden and resourcedemanding. Here, we outline an alternative norming methodology based on explicit ratings of the relative meaning frequencies of dictionary definitions. To evaluate this method, we collected and analyzed data in a norming study involving 544 English homonyms, using the eDom norming software that we developed for this purpose. Dictionary definitions were generally sufficient to exhaustively cover word meanings, and the methods converged on stable norms with fewer data and less effort on the part of the experimenter. The predictive validity of the norms was demonstrated in analyses of lexical decision data from the English Lexicon Project (Balota et al., Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445-459, 2007), and from Armstrong and Plaut (Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, [2223][2224][2225][2226][2227][2228] 2011). On the basis of these results, our norming method obviates relying on the unsubstantiated assumptions involved in estimating relative meaning frequencies on the basis of classification of free associates. Additional details of the norming procedure, the meaning frequency norms, and the source code, standalone binaries, and user manual for the software are available at http:// edom.cnbc.cmu.edu.Keywords Semantic ambiguity . Homonyms . Relative meaning frequency . Norming methods . Rating dictionary definitions . Free associate classification . Homonymy disadvantageThe vast majority of words in English and many other languages are semantically ambiguous-that is, they are associated with multiple distinct interpretations. For example, the word COMPOUND can denote either an or a meaning, depending on the context (hereafter denoted as / COMPOUND; Britton, 1978;Klein & Murphy, 2001). As a result, developing an account of semantic ambiguity resolution is a critical component of any theory of word and discourse comprehension, and this has been a key objective in a considerable body of research over the past several decades (e.g

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Section: Characteristics Of the Norms And Implications For Studies Thsupporting

confidence: 67%

eDom: Norming software and relative meaning frequencies for 544 English homonyms

2012

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“…In addition, participants were instructed that whenever they noticed that a word had more than one meaning, they should provide the estimate for the meaning that was acquired first. This modification was Schock, Cortese, and Khanna (in press), number of senses were obtained from Miller (2009), and semantic neighborhood size values were obtained from Durda and Buchanan (2006) based on work by Khanna and Cortese (2011) that examined AoA for ambiguous words.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Age of acquisition estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words

et al. 2012

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Age of acquisition (AoA) ratings based on a 1-7 scale for 3,000 disyllabic words were obtained from 32 participants. We demonstrate that these estimates are both reliable and valid. These estimates add to those collected on monosyllabic words and are of value to researchers interested in factors that contribute to word processing. They also can be used in regression analyses on measures obtained from large databases, and can be used in conjunction with imageability ratings for the same word corpus to differentiate AoA from imageability.

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“…Gilhooly and Logie (1980b) collected ratings on a set of 387 ambiguous words having a total of 905 separate meanings on the scales of CNC, IMAG, FAM, and AOA. Khanna and Cortese (2011) collected AOA ratings of 1,208 ambiguous words having a total of 3,460 senses. Although most ambiguous words are “biased,” having a strongly dominant meaning and one or more subordinate meanings, some are “balanced,” having two more salient meanings, with other possible subordinate senses (Sereno, O’Donnell, & Rayner, 2006).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Glasgow Norms: Ratings of 5,500 words on nine scales

et al. 2018

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The Glasgow Norms are a set of normative ratings for 5,553 English words on nine psycholinguistic dimensions: arousal, valence, dominance, concreteness, imageability, familiarity, age of acquisition, semantic size, and gender association. The Glasgow Norms are unique in several respects. First, the corpus itself is relatively large, while simultaneously providing norms across a substantial number of lexical dimensions. Second, for any given subset of words, the same participants provided ratings across all nine dimensions (33 participants/word, on average). Third, two novel dimensions-semantic size and gender association-are included. Finally, the corpus contains a set of 379 ambiguous words that are presented either alone (e.g., toast) or with information that selects an alternative sense (e.g., toast (bread), toast (speech)). The relationships between the dimensions of the Glasgow Norms were initially investigated by assessing their correlations. In addition, a principal component analysis revealed four main factors, accounting for 82% of the variance (Visualization, Emotion, Salience, and Exposure). The validity of the Glasgow Norms was established via comparisons of our ratings to 18 different sets of current psycholinguistic norms. The dimension of size was tested with megastudy data, confirming findings from past studies that have explicitly examined this variable. Alternative senses of ambiguous words (i.e., disambiguated forms), when discordant on a given dimension, seemingly led to appropriately distinct ratings. Informal comparisons between the ratings of ambiguous words and of their alternative senses showed different patterns that likely depended on several factors (the number of senses, their relative strengths, and the rating scales themselves). Overall, the Glasgow Norms provide a valuable resource-in particular, for researchers investigating the role of word recognition in language comprehension.

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Age of acquisition estimates for 1,208 ambiguous and polysemous words

Cited by 11 publications

References 25 publications

eDom: Norming software and relative meaning frequencies for 544 English homonyms

eDom: Norming software and relative meaning frequencies for 544 English homonyms

Age of acquisition estimates for 3,000 disyllabic words

The Glasgow Norms: Ratings of 5,500 words on nine scales

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