An on-line investigation of lexical ambiguity processing in schizophrenia.
The processing of lexical ambiguity in context was investigated in eight individuals with schizophrenia and a matched control group. Participants made speeded lexical decisions on the third word in auditory word triplets representing concordant (coin-bank-money), discordant (river-bank-money), neutral (day-bank-money), and unrelated (river-day-money) conditions. When the interstimulus interval (ISI) between the words was 100 ms, individuals with schizophrenia demonstrated priming consistent with selective, context-based lexical activation. At 1250 ms ISI, a pattern of nonselective meaning facilitation was obtained. These results suggest an attentional breakdown in the sustained inhibition of meanings on the basis of lexical context.
Copland
David
D
Center for Research in Language Processing and Linguistics, Department of Speech Pathology and Audiology, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia. d.copland@mailbox.uq.edu.au
Chenery
Helen
H
Savage
Greg
G
McGrath
John
J
D003072:Cognition Disorders / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000209:etiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009483:Neuropsychological Tests; D011930:Reaction Time; D012559:Schizophrenia / Q000150:complications*; D014825:Vocabulary