LETTER DETECTION IN MULTIPLE-MEANING WORDS - ONE LEXICAL ENTRY OR 2

The methodology of Reicher (1969) was used to perform three experiment s to determine whether the number of word meanings has an effect on le tter-detection performance. Performance was hypothesized to be superio r on multiple-meaning words (i.e., ambiguous words such as bank) than on single-meaning words (i.e., unambiguous words such as cause), becau se ambiguous words may possess a separate lexical entry for each disti nct meaning. Results from each experiment revealed the standard word s uperiority effect (WSE, better letter detection in words than in nonwo rds). However, there was no reliable difference between performance wi th ambiguous and unambiguous words in any experiment. Implications of these results are discussed.