幼儿汉语字形和语义与图形加工速度的发展与比较

测量了127名4-7岁幼儿基线速度、汉字字形、语义和图形加工速度的年龄差异.结果发现:(1)基线速度的反应时随年龄增伽而缩短,正确率不发生变化,对不同加工速度的年龄变化具有部分中介作用.(2)幼儿的三类加工速度随年龄加快,4岁儿童汉语加工水平低于图形加工水平.儿童进入小学后汉语加工水平开始提高,达到图形加工水平.(3)学龄前儿童加工汉语刺激的速度及其变化率慢于学龄初期儿童,4岁儿童的汉语语义加工能力要好于字形加工.(4)幼儿汉语空间认知水平低于空间刺激和汉字的言语认知水平.练习是造成图形加工速度、汉字语义加工速度快于汉字字形加工速度的原因之一.     

3.5～5.5岁儿童时序认知能力的发展研究

采用被试内设计,研究了90名3.5～5.5岁儿童时序认知能力。结果发现:(1)3.5岁儿童基本上不具备时序认知的能力,儿童的时序认知能力在4.5岁到5.5岁间出现快速发展。到5.5岁左右,大部分儿童已具备时序认知能力。(2)不同年龄的儿童都表现出对现在的认知最好、对过去的认知次之、对将来的认知最差的特点。(3)3.5岁和4.5岁儿童还不具备判断时序先后的能力,到了5.5岁以后,儿童知道了什么是先发生的,什么是后发生的,具备了判断时序的能力。     

汉语主、宾关系从句加工难度及其核心名词生命性效应

采用眼动追踪实验技术,考查了核心名词生命性取向对汉语主、宾关系从句加工难度调节效应。结果显示:(1)核心名词生命性格局对汉语主、宾关系从句的加工难度有着显著调节作用,具体表现为:当主、从句中的核心名词为"生命性-非生命性"格局时,在主句核心名词、核心动词位置,宾语关系从句加工较为容易;当主、从句中的核心名词为"非生命性-生命性"格局时,在上述位置,两种关系从句加工难度差异不显著;(2)汉语主、宾关系从句加工中核心名词生命性效应主要发生在语义信息提取、论元关系建构阶段,体现出汉语语言的特异性。上述结果支持了题元切适性理论。     

2.5—6岁儿童解决五项系列问题的研究

利用五项系列问题设计了5种情境研究2.5—6岁儿童的传递性关系推理,发现:(1)在未经训练的情况下,4岁组以下不具备这种能力,4—5岁幼儿的传递性关系推理能力开始萌芽,5—6岁是该能力的发展加速期,6岁组幼儿基本上具备了这种能力;在接受训练之后,2.5—3.5岁幼儿基本不具备这种能力,4岁组幼儿大致处于临界水平,5岁组以上已经基本具备。(2)比较句式理解失误和前提记忆不足均是幼儿推理失败的重要心理因素。(3)前提表达方式影响幼儿的推理成败。(4)与用三项系列问题作材料的研究相比,用五项系列问题作刺激所引起的推理能力表现得晚得多。     

利用倒转图考察儿童认知发展的初步研究

利用倒转图设计的实验考察了3—6岁儿童视觉认知的发展特点,研究结果表明：3岁儿童对倒转后的图形重新认知有难度。4岁及以后的儿童对倒转图重新认知的能力得到迅速发展。对倒转图的认知不仅涉及视知觉能力,同时也反映了儿童关于二维图画表征的观念。我们推测,在3岁或更早儿童的观念中,二维图画与其所指物之间的关系是严格的一一对应的。研究还对利用倒转图考察儿童知觉观点采择的可行性进行了探讨。倒转图可以成为研究儿童认知及社会性发展的有效工具。     

4~6岁汉语儿童正字法意识的萌芽与发展

研究旨在考察汉语学龄前儿童正字法意识的发展情况。在某中等城市一所幼儿园随机选择4岁、5岁、6岁三个年龄段的儿童各31、37、34名。实验一使用汉字、韩文和日文（平假名）作为实验材料探查学龄前儿童的汉字特异性意识;实验二使用上下结构、左右结构的真字、假字和非字考察学龄前儿童的部件位置意识。实验结果显示：（1）三组儿童都能区分日文和汉字,5岁左右儿童这种能力达到成熟。4岁儿童不能区分汉字和韩文,直到6岁,辨别汉字和韩文的能力也没有发展成熟。（2）三组儿童都能意识到假字符合正字法规则,但拒绝非字的能力在学前期尚未发展成熟,儿童在学前期不具备部件位置意识;6岁儿童更容易拒绝上下部件位置颠倒的非字。     

汉语认知研究的集大成之作——评彭聃龄著《汉语认知研究》

彭聃龄先生的《汉语认知研究》由北京师范大学出版社出版了。这是汉语认知研究领域里的一件盛事,也是中国心理学界的一件盛事。该书近100万字,琳琅满目,洋洋大观,皆是先生和弟子20余年来汉语认知研究的重要成果,堪称汉语认知研究的集大成之作。第一,该书内容十分丰富。全书共分8编,第一编是汉字识别,第二编是汉字形声字的读音、语义提取和汉语的声调加工,第三编是汉语词汇识别,第四编是句子和课文理解,第五编是儿童语言发展,第六编是汉语双语加工与表征研究,第七编是汉字识别的计算机模拟,第八编是汉语认知的应用研究。内容几乎涵盖了汉语认…     

3.5—5岁儿童类比推理的实验研究

类比推理是逻辑思维的组成部分,是对事物问或数量间关系的发现及其应用,它是研究儿童认知发展的一个重要方面。目前国内外已有一些关于儿童类比推理的研究。国内学者认为,3岁儿童基本上不能进行类比推理,4岁儿童只能根据一种个别因素完成推理操作任务,而5岁儿童则有近半数能依据两种或三种因素的完成推理任务。总的趋势是随着年龄的增长推理能力逐步提高(中央教科所,1987)。     

4～6岁儿童未来时间认知教学的实验研究

本研究在Friedman实验范式的基础上,增加了“系统教学”变量,探究教学与4~6岁儿童未来时间认知能力发展的关系。结果表明:(1)“教学”是影响儿童未来时序认知的主要因素;(2)“点估计策略”与“习俗时间单元概念策略”是两种主要时间认知策略;(3)儿童未来时间认知策略的发展遵循从感性直观到抽象概括的发展规律;(4)“教学”是影响其未来时间认知策略的主要因素;(5)4岁儿童已能区分未来事件的时距信息,且其未来时距认知具有分段性。     

PASS认知加工对汉语阅读的影响——语音加工和正字法加工的中介机制

PASS认知加工能有效解释阅读的内在加工机制。本研究以CAS认知评估系统和改编的言语认知测验为工具,选取178名3-5年级儿童,通过多层回归分析探讨语音加工、正字法加工、PASS认知加工与汉语阅读之间的关系。结果发现,PASS认知加工对汉语阅读的预测作用不尽相同。继时性加工对语音加工具有独特的预测作用,同时性加工对正字法加工具有独立的贡献。继时性加工能够超越语音加工的影响,预测汉语阅读流畅性和词汇阅读的独特变异。同时性加工能够超越正字法加工和语音加工的影响,预测词汇阅读的独特变异。研究结果为以后不同年级儿童阅读能力的提升提供了理论基础。     

The Role of Animacy in Children's Interpretation of Relative Clauses in English: Evidence From Sentence–Picture Matching and Eye Movements

Subject relative clauses (SRCs) are typically processed more easily than object relative clauses (ORCs), but this difference is diminished by an inanimate head-noun in semantically non-reversible ORCs (“The book that the boy is reading”). In two eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the influence of animacy on online processing of semantically reversible SRCs and ORCs using lexically inanimate items that were perceptually animate due to motion (e.g., “Where is the tractor that the cow is chasing”). In Experiment 1, 48 children (aged 4;5–6;4) and 32 adults listened to sentences that varied in the lexical animacy of the NP1 head-noun (Animate/Inanimate) and relative clause (RC) type (SRC/ORC) with an animate NP2 while viewing two images depicting opposite actions. As expected, inanimate head-nouns facilitated the correct interpretation of ORCs in children; however, online data revealed children were more likely to anticipate an SRC as the RC unfolded when an inanimate head-noun was used, suggesting processing was sensitive to perceptual animacy. In Experiment 2, we repeated our design with inanimate (rather than animate) NP2s (e.g., “where is the tractor that the car is following”) to investigate whether our online findings were due to increased visual surprisal at an inanimate as agent, or to similarity-based interference. We again found greater anticipation for an SRC in the inanimate condition, supporting our surprisal hypothesis. Across the experiments, offline measures show that lexical animacy influenced children's interpretation of ORCs, whereas online measures reveal that as RCs unfolded, children were sensitive to the perceptual animacy of lexically inanimate NPs, which was not reflected in the offline data. Overall measures of syntactic comprehension, inhibitory control, and verbal short-term memory and working memory were not predictive of children's accuracy in RC interpretation, with the exception of a positive correlation with a standardized measure of syntactic comprehension in Experiment 1.     

Relative Clause Effects at the Matrix Verb Depend on Type of Intervening Material

Although a large literature demonstrates that object-extracted relative clauses (ORCs) are harder to process than subject-extracted relative clauses (SRCs), there is less agreement regarding where during processing this difficulty emerges, as well as how best to explain these effects. An eye-tracking study by Staub, Dillon, and Clifton (2017) demonstrated that readers experience more processing difficulty at the matrix verb for ORCs than for SRCs when the matrix verb immediately follows the relative clause (RC), but the difficulty is eliminated if a prepositional phrase (PP) intervenes. A careful examination of Staub et al.’s materials reveals that the types of PPs used in the experiment were a mixture of locative and temporal PPs. This is important in that locative PPs can modify either a noun phrase or a verb phrase (VP), whereas temporal PPs typically modify VPs, resulting in systematic differences in PP attachment across ORCs versus SRCs. In the current eye-tracking experiment, we systematically manipulated RC type and PP type in the same sentences used by Staub et al. The manipulation of PP type resulted in a crossover pattern at the matrix verb such that there was a trend for reading times to be longer for ORCs than SRCs when the PP was locative, but reading times were longer for SRCs than ORCs when the PP was temporal. These results provide important information regarding the locus of RC-processing effects and highlight the importance of carefully considering how intervening material might unintentionally alter the structure or the meaning of a sentence.     

Use of Memory-Load Interference in Processing Spoken Chinese Relative Clauses

The processing advantage of Subject-gapped relative clause (SRC) versus Object-gapped relative clause (ORC) has been advocated by competing processing accounts. Using a self-paced listening paradigm, this study investigates what Chinese RC online processing asymmetry looks like under concurrent memory load manipulation. Both On-line listening times and Post-online measures of Chinese SRCs and ORCs are estimated and compared. The on-line results show that ORCs and SRCs demonstrate no differential processing patterns under the interfering conditions. At the relativizer-DE marker region, under 0-digt-load, SRCs show processing advantage, while under 5-digit-load condition, SRCs display greater listening times than ORCs. Furthermore, the Post-online RTs and accuracy of post-sentence comprehension and digit recalls show that processing of SRCs had worse performance. These results lead to the conjecture that there may be no intrinsic processing asymmetry in Chinese RCs, and underscore the necessity that future studies in exploring the processing metrics of sentence complexity should consider the working memory involvement.     

Processing relative clauses in supportive contexts

Results from two self-paced reading experiments in English are reported in which subject- and object-extracted relative clauses (SRCs and ORCs, respectively) were presented in contexts that support both types of relative clauses (RCs). Object-extracted versions were read more slowly than subject-extracted versions across both experiments. These results are not consistent with a decay-based working memory account of dependency formation where the amount of decay is a function of the number of new discourse referents that intervene between the dependents (Gibson, 1998; Warren & Gibson, 2002). Rather, these results support interference-based accounts and decay-based accounts where the amount of decay depends on the number of words or on the type of noun phrases that intervene between the dependents. In Experiment 2, presentation in supportive contexts was directly contrasted with presentation in null contexts. Whereas in the null context the extraction effect was only observed during the RC region, in a supportive context the extraction effect was numerically larger and persisted into the following region, thus showing that extraction effects are enhanced in supportive contexts. A sentence completion study demonstrated that the rate of SRCs versus ORCs was similar across null and supportive contexts (with most completions being subject-extractions), ruling out the possibility that an enhanced extraction effect in supportive contexts is due to ORCs being less expected in such contexts. However, the content of the RCs differed between contexts in the completions, such that the RCs produced in supportive contexts were more constrained, reflecting the lexical and semantic content of the preceding context. This effect, which we discuss in terms of expectations/lexico-syntactic priming, suggests that the enhancement of the extraction effect in supportive contexts is due to the facilitation of the subject-extracted condition.     

生命性信息在语言加工中的作用

生命性的范畴化从多个方面影响了语言的加工.名词的生命性信息不仅影响了句法形态标记和句法位置等句法线索的使用,而且在题元角色的分配中发挥一定的作用.较早的研究主要采用反应时和眼动技术,发现生命性信息促进了歧义句和句法复杂句的加工.近年来,随着认知神经科学技术的发展,研究者进一步探讨了生命性信息在题元角色分配中的神经机制.对于生命性作用机制的深入研究,促使新的语言加工模型的出现,这些模型对语言加工中句法和语义的关系,进行了越来越详尽的阐释.未来该领域的研究应重点关注生命性的即时性加工、题元角色分配中生命性信息与句法信息的交互作用以及汉语和其他语言的跨语言比较研究等,以进一步揭示语言加工的认知机制.     

The effect of noun animacy on the processing of unambiguous sentences: evidence from French relative clauses

Two experiments, one using self-paced reading and one using eye tracking, investigated the influence of noun animacy on the processing of subject relative (SR) clauses, object relative (OR) clauses, and object relative clauses with stylistic inversion (OR-SI) in French. Each sentence type was presented in two versions: either with an animate relative clause (RC) subject and an inanimate object (AS/IO), or with an inanimate RC subject and an animate object (IS/AO). There was an interaction between the RC structure and noun animacy. The advantage of SR sentences over OR and OR-SI sentences disappeared in AS/IO sentences. The interaction between animacy and structure occurred in self-paced reading times and in total fixation times on the RCs, but not in first-pass reading times. The results are consistent with a late interaction between animacy and structural processing during parsing and provide data relevant to several models of parsing.     

Memory Versus Expectation: Processing Relative Clauses in a Flexible Word Order Language

Memory limitations and probabilistic expectations are two key factors that have been posited to play a role in the incremental processing of natural language. Relative clauses (RCs) have long served as a key proving ground for such theories of language processing. Across three self-paced reading experiments, we test the online comprehension of Hungarian subject- and object-extracted RCs (SRCs and ORCs, respectively). We capitalize on the syntactic properties of Hungarian that allow for a variety of word orders within RCs, which helps us to delineate the processing costs associated with memory demand and violated expectations. Results showed a processing cost at the RC verb for structures that have longer verb-argument distances, despite those structures being more frequent in the corpus. These findings thus support theories that attribute processing difficulty to memory limitations, rather than theories that attribute difficulty to less expected structures.     

Temporal analyses of children's comprehension during oral reading

Second- and fourth-grade children read aloud one normal story then two stories that contained an anomalous phrase in the third of five sentences. The anomalies were produced by reversing the order of two predicate nouns. The rate of articulation was slower and total pause time was greater when children read the anomalous sentences than when they read the normal sentences. While the anomalous sentences were read literally, all but a few children restored the anomalous phrase to its original meaning or changed some of the words to make the anomalous event more plausible. The results of the study suggest that temporal measures are highly sensitive to comprehension processes and that children comprehend the story as they read and compare what they read with what they know about the world.     

Effects of animacy and noun-phrase relatedness on the processing of complex sentences

Previous work has suggested that syntactically complex object-extracted relative clauses are easier to process when the head noun phrase (NP1) is inanimate and the embedded noun phrase (NP2) is animate, as compared with the reverse animacy configuration, with differences in processing difficulty beginning as early as NP2 (e.g., The article that the senator . . . vs. The senator that the article . . .). Two eye-tracking-while-reading experiments were conducted to better understand the source of this effect. Experiment 1 showed that having an inanimate NP1 facilitated processing even when NP2 was held constant. Experiment 2 manipulated both animacy of NP1 and the degree of semantic relatedness between the critical NPs. When NP1 and NP2 were paired arbitrarily, the early animacy effect emerged at NP2. When NP1 and NP2 were semantically related, this effect disappeared, with effects of NP1 animacy emerging in later processing stages for both the related and arbitrary conditions. The results indicate that differences in the animacy of NP1 influence early processing of complex sentences only when the critical NPs share no meaningful relationship.