ACCESS TO WORD MEANINGS DURING SPOKEN LANGUAGE COMPREHENSION - EFFECTS OF SENTENTIAL SEMANTIC CONTEXT

In 3 cross-modal priming experiments, we investigated whether access t o a word's meaning is affected by the semantic context in which it is heard or is exhaustive and context-independent. We probed access of no nassociated semantic properties and normatively associated words befor e and after prime offset. Whereas associated targets were primed conte xt-independently, access to semantic property targets was affected by the sentential context. Semantic property targets showed greater primi ng in a sentence biasing to a specific semantic property than in a neu tral condition, even when this bias made the target property irrelevan t rather than relevant. These results cannot be accounted for by curre nt exhaustive access or context-dependency theories of lexical access.