Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gvvz8 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T23:41:42.710Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Semantic ambiguity norms for 530 Spanish words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  26 July 2016

JUAN HARO ,
PILAR FERRÉ ,
ROGER BOADA  and
JOSEP DEMESTRE
JUAN HARO*
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
PILAR FERRÉ
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
ROGER BOADA
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
JOSEP DEMESTRE
Affiliation:
Universitat Rovira i Virgili
*
ADDRESS FOR CORRESPONDENCE Juan Haro, Department of Psychology and CRAMC, University Rovira i Virgili, Crta. De Valls s/n., 43007-Tarragona. Spain. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This study presents semantic ambiguity norms for 530 Spanish words. Two subjective measures of semantic ambiguity and two subjective measures of relatedness of ambiguous word meanings were collected. In addition, two objective measures of semantic ambiguity were included. Furthermore, subjective ratings were obtained for some relevant lexicosemantic variables, such as concreteness, familiarity, emotional valence, arousal, and age of acquisition. In sum, the database overcomes some of the limitations of the published databases of Spanish ambiguous words; in particular, the scarcity of measures of ambiguity, the lack of relatedness of ambiguous word meanings measures, and the absence of a set of unambiguous words. Thus, it will be very helpful for researchers interested in exploring semantic ambiguity as well as for those using semantic ambiguous words to study language processing in clinical populations.

Type
Articles
Information
Applied Psycholinguistics , Volume 38 , Issue 2 , March 2017 , pp. 457 - 475
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2016 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Alonso, M. A., Fernández, A., & Díez, E. (2015). Subjective age-of-acquisition norms for 7,039 Spanish words. Behavior Research Methods, 47, 268–274. doi:10.3758/s13428-014-0454-2 Google Scholar
Armstrong, B. C., & Plaut, D. C. (2011). Inducing homonymy effects via stimulus quality and (not) nonword difficulty: Implications for models of semantic ambiguity and word recognition. In Carlson, L. A., Hölscher, C., & Shipley, T. F. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2223–2228). Austin, TX: Cognitive Design Society.Google Scholar
Azuma, T. (1996). Familiarity and relatedness of word meanings: Ratings for 110 homographs. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 28, 109–124. doi:10.3758/BF03203645 Google Scholar
Azuma, T., & Van Orden, G. C. (1997). Why SAFE is better than fAST: The relatedness of a word's meanings affects lexical decision times. Journal of Memory and Language, 36, 484–504. http://doi.org/10.1006/jmla.1997.2502 Google Scholar
Balota, D. A., Ferraro, F. R., & Connor, L. T. (1991). On the early influence of meaning in word recognition: A review of the literature. In Schwanenflugel, P. J. (Ed.), The psychology of word meanings (pp. 187–221). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Bradley, M. M., & Lang, P. J. (1994). Measuring emotion: The self-assessment manikin and the semantic differential. Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 25, 49–59. doi:10.1016/0005-7916(94)90063-9 Google Scholar
Britton, B. K. (1978). Lexical ambiguity of words used in English text. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation, 10, 1–7. doi:10.3758/BF03205079 Google Scholar
Domínguez, A., Cuetos, F., & de Vega, M. (2001). 100 Palabras polisémicas con sus acepciones. Revista Electrónica de Metodología Aplicada, 6, 63–84.Google Scholar
Duchon, A., Perea, M., Sebastián-Gallés, N., Martí, M. A., & Carreiras, M. (2013). EsPal: One-stop shopping for Spanish word properties. Behavior Research Methods, 45, 1246–1258. doi:10.3758/s13428-013-0326-1 Google Scholar
Durkin, K., & Manning, J. (1989). Polysemy and the subjective lexicon: Semantic relatednes and the salience of interword senses. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 18, 577–612.Google Scholar
Eddington, C., & Tokowicz, N. (2015). How meaning similarity influences ambiguous word processing: The current state of the literature. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 22, 13–37. doi:10.3758/s13423-014-0665-7 Google Scholar
Eich, E. (1984). Memory for unattended events: Remembering with and without awareness. Memory & Cognition, 12, 105–111. doi:10.3758/BF03198423 Google Scholar
Estevez, A. (1991). Estudio normativo sobre ambigüedad en castellano. Psicológica, 3, 237–271.Google Scholar
Ferraro, F., & Kellas, G. (1990). Normative data for number of word meanings. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 22, 491–498. doi:10.3758/BF03204432 Google Scholar
Gawlick-Grendell, L. A., & Woltz, D. J. (1994). Meaning dominance norms for 120 homographs. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 26, 5–25. doi:10.3758/BF03204557 Google Scholar
Gee, N. R., & Harris, S. L. (2010). Homograph norms: An alternative approach to determining meaning dominance. Behavior Research Methods, 42, 976–986. doi:10.3758/BRM.42.4.976 Google Scholar
Gernsbacher, M. A. (1984). Resolving 20 years of inconsistent interactions between lexical familiarity and orthography, concreteness, and polysemy. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 113, 256–281. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.113.2.256 Google Scholar
Gómez Veiga, I., Carriedo López, N., Rucián Gallego, M., & Vila Cháves, J. O. (2010). Estudio normativo de ambigüedad léxica en castellano, en niños y en adultos. Psicológica, 31, 25–47.Google Scholar
Gorfein, D. S., Viviani, J. M., & Leddo, J. (1982). Norms as a tool for the study of homography. Memory & Cognition, 10, 503–509. doi:10.3758/BF03197654 Google Scholar
Griffin, Z. M. (1999). Frequency of meaning use for ambiguous and unambiguous words. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 31, 520–530.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Guasch, M., Ferré, P., & Fraga, I. (2015). Spanish norms for affective and lexico-semantic variables for 1,400 words. Behavior Research Methods. Advance online publication. doi:10.3758/s13428-015-0684-y Google Scholar
Hala, S., Pexman, P. M., & Glenwright, M. (2007). Priming the meaning of homographs in typically developing children and children with autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 37, 329–340. doi:10.1007/s10803-006-0162-6 Google Scholar
Hayes, S., Hirsch, C. R., Krebs, G., & Mathews, A. (2010). The effects of modifying interpretation bias on worry in generalized anxiety disorder. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 48, 171–178.Google Scholar
Hertel, P. T., & El-Messidi, L. (2006). Am I Blue? Depressed mood and the consequences of self-focus for the interpretation and recall of ambiguous words. Behavior Therapy, 37, 259–268. doi:10.1016/j.beth.2006.01.003 Google Scholar
Hino, Y., Kusunose, Y., & Lupker, S. J. (2010). The relatedness-of-meaning effect for ambiguous words in lexical-decision tasks: When does relatedness matter? Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 64, 180–196. doi:10.1037/a0020475 Google Scholar
Hino, Y., & Lupker, S. J. (1996). Effects of polysemy in lexical decision and naming: An alternative to lexical access accounts. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 22, 1331–1356. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.22.6.1331 Google Scholar
Hino, Y., Lupker, S. J., & Pexman, P. M. (2002). Ambiguity and synonymy effects in lexical decision, naming, and semantic categorization tasks: Interactions between orthography, phonology, and semantics. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 28, 686–713. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.28.4.686 Google Scholar
Hino, Y., Pexman, P. M., & Lupker, S. J. (2006). Ambiguity and relatedness effects in semantic tasks: Are they due to semantic coding? Journal of Memory and Language, 55, 247–273. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2006.04.001 Google Scholar
Hutchison, K. A., & Balota, D. A. (2005). Decoupling semantic and associative information in false memories: Explorations with semantically ambiguous and unambiguous critical lures. Journal of Memory and Language, 52, 1–28. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2004.08.003 Google Scholar
Jastrzembski, J. E. (1981). Multiple meanings, number of related meanings, frequency of occurrence, and the lexicon. Cognitive Psychology, 13, 278–305. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(81)90011-6 Google Scholar
Kellas, G., Ferraro, F. R., & Simpson, G. B. (1988). Lexical ambiguity and the timecourse of attentional allocation in word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 14, 601–609. doi:10.1037/0096-1523.14.4.601 Google Scholar
Klepousniotou, E., & Baum, S. R. (2007). Disambiguating the ambiguity advantage effect in word recognition: An advantage for polysemous but not homonymous words. Journal of Neurolinguistics, 20, 1–24. doi:10.1016/j.jneuroling.2006.02.001 Google Scholar
Klepousniotou, E., Pike, G. B., Steinhauer, K., & Gracco, V. (2012). Not all ambiguous words are created equal: An EEG investigation of homonymy and polysemy. Brain and Language, 123, 11–21. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2012.06.007 Google Scholar
Lin, C.-J. C., & Ahrens, K. (2005). How many meanings does a word have? Meaning estimation in Chinese and English. In Minett, J. W. & Wang, W. S.-Y. (Eds.), Language acquisition, change and emergence: Essays in evolutionary linguistics (pp. 437–464). Hong Kong: City University of Hong Kong Press.Google Scholar
Lin, C.-J. C., & Ahrens, K. (2010). Ambiguity advantage revisited: Two meanings are better than one when accessing Chinese nouns. Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 39, 1–19. doi:10.1007/s10936-009-9120-8 Google Scholar
Mathews, A., Richards, A., & Eysenck, M. (1989). Interpretation of homophones related to threat in anxiety states. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 31–34. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.98.1.31 Google Scholar
Millis, M. L., & Button, S. B. (1989). The effect of polysemy on lexical decision time: Now you see it, now you don't. Memory & Cognition, 17, 141–147. doi:10.3758/BF03197064 Google Scholar
Nelson, D. L., McEvoy, C. L., Walling, J. R., & Wheeler, J. W. (1980). The University of South Florida homograph norms. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation, 12, 16–37. doi:10.3758/BF03208320 Google Scholar
Nickerson, C. A., & Cartwright, D. S. (1984). The University of Colorado meaning norms. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 16, 355–382. doi:10.3758/BF03202462 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Panman, O. (1982). Homonymy and polysemy. Lingua, 58, 105–136. doi:10.1016/0024-3841(82)90059-6 Google Scholar
Pexman, P. M., Hino, Y., & Lupker, S. J. (2004). Semantic ambiguity and the process of generating meaning from print. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 30, 1252–1270. doi:10.1037/0278-7393.30.6.1252 Google Scholar
Real Academia Española. (1984). Diccionario de la lengua española (20th ed.). Madrid: Author.Google Scholar
Real Academia Española. (2014). Diccionario de la lengua española (23rd ed.). Madrid: Author.Google Scholar
Rodd, J. M., Gaskell, M. G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2002). Making sense of semantic ambiguity: Semantic competition in lexical access. Journal of Memory and Language, 46, 245–266. doi:10.1006/jmla.2001.2810 Google Scholar
Rodd, J. M., Gaskell, M. G., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D. (2004). Modelling the effects of semantic ambiguity in word recognition. Cognitive Science, 28, 89–104. doi.10.1016/j.cogsci.2003.08.002 Google Scholar
Rubenstein, H., Garfield, L., & Millikan, J. A. (1970). Homographic entries in the internal lexicon. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 9, 487–494. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(70)80091-3 Google Scholar
Simpson, G. B. (1994). Context and the processing of ambiguous words. In Gernsbacher, M. A. (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 359–374). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Swinney, D. A. (1991). The resolution of interdeterminacy during language comprehension: Perspectives on modularity in lexical, structural and pragmatic process. In Simpson, G. B. (Ed.), Understanding word and sentence (pp. 367–385). North Holland: Elsevier Science.Google Scholar
Syssau, A., & Laxén, J. (2012). The influence of semantic richness on the visual recognition of emotional words. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 66, 70–78. doi:10.1037/a0027083 Google Scholar
Tokowicz, N., & Kroll, J. F. (2007). Number of meanings and concreteness: Consequences of ambiguity within and across languages. Language and Cognitive Processes, 22, 727–779. doi:10.1080/01690960601057068 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Twilley, L. C., Dixon, P., Taylor, D., & Clark, K. (1994). University of Alberta norms of relative meaning frequency for 566 homographs. Memory & Cognition, 22, 111–126. doi:10.3758/BF03202766 Google Scholar
Van Petten, C., & Kutas, M. (1987). Ambiguous words in context: An event-related potential analysis of the time course of meaning activation. Journal of Memory and Language, 26, 188–208. doi:10.1016/0749-596X(87)90123-9 Google Scholar
Wollen, K. A., Cox, S. D., Coahran, M. M., Shea, D. S., & Kirby, R. F. (1980). Frequency of occurrence and concreteness ratings of homograph meanings. Behavior Research Methods and Instrumentation, 12, 8–15. doi:10.3758/BF03208319 Google Scholar