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Diversity of narrative context disrupts the early stage of learning the meanings of novel words

Abstract:
High quality lexical representations develop through repeated exposures to words in different contexts. This preregistered experiment investigated how diversity of narrative context affects the earliest stages of word learning via reading. Adults (N = 100) learned invented meanings for eight pseudowords, which each occurred in five written paragraphs either within a single coherent narrative context or five different narrative contexts. The words’ semantic features were controlled across conditions to avoid influences from polysemy (lexical ambiguity). Posttests included graded measures of word-form recall (spelling accuracy) and recognition (multiple choice), and word-meaning recall (number of semantic features). Diversity of narrative context did not affect word-form learning, but more semantic features were correctly recalled for words trained in a single context. These findings indicate that learning the meanings of novel words is initially boosted by anchoring them to a single coherent narrative discourse.
Publication status:
Published
Peer review status:
Peer reviewed

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Publisher copy:
10.3758/s13423-023-02316-z

Authors


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Institution:
University of Oxford
Division:
MSD
Department:
Experimental Psychology
Oxford college:
St John's College
Role:
Author


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Funder identifier:
http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000269
Grant:
ES/S009752/1


Publisher:
Springer
Journal:
Psychonomic Bulletin and Review More from this journal
Volume:
30
Issue:
6
Pages:
2338–2350
Publication date:
2023-06-27
Acceptance date:
2023-05-30
DOI:
EISSN:
1531-5320
ISSN:
1069-9384


Language:
English
Pubs id:
1394869
Local pid:
pubs:1394869
Deposit date:
2023-06-13

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