Getting “Clued” in: The Usage and Significance of Context Clues
Flora-Jean M. Forbes, Erin Michelle Buchanan · 2017
The usage of context clues to determine the meaning of target nonsense words was examined to determine the types and structure of the context clues people use in reading. Specifically, participants defined a target nonsense word and then picked a specific word from the sentence that was used as a context clue. For noun target words, verb and adverb context clues were used most frequently and for verb context clues, noun context clues were used most frequently. These findings suggest the application of semantic bias in processing over a right association style of parsing. However, for adjective context clues, noun context clues were used most frequently, utilizing the principle of right association.