{"id":{"repo_id":"uiuc","oai_identifier":"oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/29608"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/uiuc/oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/29608","repository":{"repo_id":"uiuc","name":"University of Illinois - Urbana-Champaign","base_url":"https://www.ideals.illinois.edu/oai-pmh"},"display":{"title":"Effects of efficient fronto-temporal circuitry on lexical ambiguity resolution: converging evidence from cross-age comparisons in eye-tracking and ERP data","abstract":"Eye-tracking was used to examine how younger and older adults use syntactic and semantic information to disambiguate noun/verb (NV) homographs (e.g., park). We find that young adults exhibit inflated first fixations to NV-homographs when only syntactic cues are available for disambiguation (i.e., in syntactic prose). This effect is eliminated with the addition of disambiguating semantic information. Older adults (60+) as a group fail to show the first fixation effect in syntactic prose; they instead reread NV homographs longer. This pattern mirrors that in prior event-related potential work (Lee & Federmeier, 2009, 2011), which reported a sustained frontal negativity to NV-homographs in syntactic prose for young adults, which was eliminated by semantic constraints. The frontal negativity was not observed in older adults as a group, although older adults with high verbal fluency showed the young-like pattern. Analyses of individual differences in eye-tracking patterns revealed a similar effect of verbal fluency in both young and older adults: high verbal fluency groups of both ages show larger first fixation effects, while low verbal fluency groups show larger downstream costs (rereading and/or refixating NV homographs). Jointly, the eye-tracking and ERP data suggest that effortful meaning selection recruits frontal brain areas important for suppressing contextually inappropriate meanings, which also slows eye movements. Efficacy of fronto-temporal circuitry, as captured by verbal fluency, predicts the success of engaging these mechanisms in both young and older adults. Failure to recruit these processes requires compensatory rereading or leads to comprehension failures (Lee & Federmeier, in press).","abstract_html":"Eye-tracking was used to examine how younger and older adults use syntactic and semantic information to disambiguate noun/verb (NV) homographs (e.g., park). We find that young adults exhibit inflated first fixations to NV-homographs when only syntactic cues are available for disambiguation (i.e., in syntactic prose). This effect is eliminated with the addition of disambiguating semantic information. Older adults (60+) as a group fail to show the first fixation effect in syntactic prose; they instead reread NV homographs longer. This pattern mirrors that in prior event-related potential work (Lee & Federmeier, 2009, 2011), which reported a sustained frontal negativity to NV-homographs in syntactic prose for young adults, which was eliminated by semantic constraints. The frontal negativity was not observed in older adults as a group, although older adults with high verbal fluency showed the young-like pattern. Analyses of individual differences in eye-tracking patterns revealed a similar effect of verbal fluency in both young and older adults: high verbal fluency groups of both ages show larger first fixation effects, while low verbal fluency groups show larger downstream costs (rereading and/or refixating NV homographs). Jointly, the eye-tracking and ERP data suggest that effortful meaning selection recruits frontal brain areas important for suppressing contextually inappropriate meanings, which also slows eye movements. Efficacy of fronto-temporal circuitry, as captured by verbal fluency, predicts the success of engaging these mechanisms in both young and older adults. Failure to recruit these processes requires compensatory rereading or leads to comprehension failures (Lee & Federmeier, in press).","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Stites, Mallory"],"institution":"University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign","degree_name":"M.A.","degree_level":"Thesis","degree_discipline":"Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Federmeier, Kara D."],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2012,"date_issued":"2012-02-06T20:06:32Z","date_published":"2012-02-06T20:06:32Z","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:25:27Z","subjects":["Eye-tracking","Event-related potentials","NV-homographs","Aging","Individual Differences","noun/verb (NV)"],"languages":["en"],"rights":["Copyright 2011 Mallory Stites"],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29608","outbound_label":"Handle","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Federmeier, Kara D."]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Stites, Mallory"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date","label":"Dc Date","values":["2012-02-06T20:06:32Z","2011-12"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Dissertation / Thesis","text"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_discipline","label":"Discipline","values":["Psychology"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_level","label":"Degree Level","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"thesis:degree_name","label":"Degree Name","values":["M.A."]},{"key":"thesis:institution_name","label":"Thesis Institution Name","values":["University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Eye-tracking","Event-related potentials","NV-homographs","Aging","Individual Differences","noun/verb (NV)"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["en"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["Copyright 2011 Mallory Stites"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier","label":"Identifier","values":["http://hdl.handle.net/2142/29608"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description","label":"Description","values":["Eye-tracking was used to examine how younger and older adults use syntactic and semantic information to disambiguate noun/verb (NV) homographs (e.g., park). 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Analyses of individual differences in eye-tracking patterns revealed a similar effect of verbal fluency in both young and older adults: high verbal fluency groups of both ages show larger first fixation effects, while low verbal fluency groups show larger downstream costs (rereading and/or refixating NV homographs). Jointly, the eye-tracking and ERP data suggest that effortful meaning selection recruits frontal brain areas important for suppressing contextually inappropriate meanings, which also slows eye movements. Efficacy of fronto-temporal circuitry, as captured by verbal fluency, predicts the success of engaging these mechanisms in both young and older adults. 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