@article{3fef4056c66e4d3586cc57a3e0266150,
title = "The Truth About Chickens and Bats Ambiguity Avoidance Distinguishes Types of Polysemy",
abstract = "Words mean different things in different contexts, a phenomenon called polysemy. We talk about lines of both people and poetry, and long distances or times. Polysemy lets a limited vocabulary capture the great variety in our experiences, while highlighting commonalities. But how? Are polysemous senses contextually-driven modifications of core meanings, or must each sense be separately memorized? We provide evidence for both accounts: Core meanings are used when senses follow a regular pattern (e.g., animal names for foodstuffs; noisy/tasty chicken), while separate representations are used when senses are idiosyncratically related (e.g., sheet of/drinking glass). Polysemy-type predicts participantsʼ ability to avoid referential ambiguity when naming aloud pictures that are sometimes accompanied by same-name foils (e.g., both types of chicken/glass). Participants fail to avoid ambiguity for idiosyncratically-related foils, indicating separate meanings, but succeed for regularly-related foils, indicating a common core. We discuss implications for the relationship between word meanings and concepts.",
keywords = "meaning, language, psycholinguistics, linguistics, semantic memory",
author = "Hugh Rabagliati and Jesse Snedeker",
year = "2013",
month = jul,
doi = "10.1177/0956797612472205",
language = "English",
volume = "24",
pages = "1354--1360",
journal = "Psychological Science",
issn = "0956-7976",
publisher = "SAGE Publications",
number = "7",
}