Gauging the Processing Times of Ambiguous Sentences: A Reaction Time Study on Persian Undergraduate Students

Abstract

The present study explored the differences among the process times for sentences containing one of the three kinds of linguistic ambiguities namely, lexical, grouping, and functional ambiguities. A reaction time program of a 30-item multiple-choice test of translation was developed. Forty-three Persian undergraduate students took the test. The reaction time of each item was recorded in milliseconds for each participant. A multivariate ANOVA (MANOVA) was run to compare the process times for each subsection of the test. The results of the pair-wise comparison tests indicated that there was a significant difference between process times for lexical and grouping ambiguities and between those of lexical and functional ambiguities. There was no significant difference, however, between the process times for grouping and functional ambiguities. The findings of this study can be useful in educating English learners about ambiguities and deciding on which ambiguity should be under more focus and attention.

Keywords

• functional ambiguity
• grouping ambiguity
• lexical ambiguity
• processing time
• reaction time