Experiential simulations of negated text information

We investigated the question of whether comprehenders mentally simulate a described situation even when this situation is explicitly negated in the sentence. In two experiments, participants read negative sentences such as There was no eagle in the sky, and subsequently responded to pictures of mentioned entities in the context of a recognition task. Participants' responses following negative sentences were faster when the depicted entity matched rather than mismatched the negated situation. These results suggest that comprehenders simulate the negated situation when processing a negated sentence. The results thereby provide further support for the experiential-simulations view of language comprehension.     

结果不确定离散型否定句加工机制:锚激活与限制满足模型的修正与补充

3个实验采用图片核证范式探讨结果不确定离散型否定句(如卡通不是米老鼠,米老鼠为锚图片,唐老鸭为锚高相关图片,蓝精灵为锚低相关图片)的动态表征过程。结果发现:(1)被试在初期对锚图片的反应最快,说明仅表征了事件的否定状态。(2)在中期,三类图片的反应时之间没有差异,支持全域搜索假设。(3)在晚期,被试对锚高相关图片的反应时最短,且锚图片与锚低相关图片无差异,结果支持限制接受假设。研究支持并拓展了锚激活与限制满足模型。     

Why we simulate negated information: a dynamic pragmatic account

A well-established finding in the simulation literature is that participants simulate the positive argument of negation soon after reading a negative sentence, prior to simulating a scene consistent with the negated sentence (Kaup, Ludtke, & Zwaan, 2006; Kaup, Yaxley, Madden, Zwaan, & Ludtke, 2007). One interpretation of this finding is that negation requires two steps to process: first represent what is being negated then "reject" that in favour of a representation of a negation-consistent state of affairs (Kaup et al., 2007). In this paper we argue that this finding with negative sentences could be a by-product of the dynamic way that language is interpreted relative to a common ground and not the way that negation is represented. We present a study based on Kaup et al. (2007) that tests the competing accounts. Our results suggest that some negative sentences are not processed in two steps, but provide support for the alternative, dynamic account.     

Language comprehenders retain implied shape and orientation of objects

According to theories of embodied cognition, language comprehenders simulate sensorimotor experiences to represent the meaning of what they read. Previous studies have shown that picture recognition is better if the object in the picture matches the orientation or shape implied by a preceding sentence. In order to test whether strategic imagery may explain previous findings, language comprehenders first read a list of sentences in which objects were mentioned. Only once the complete list had been read was recognition memory tested with pictures. Recognition performance was better if the orientation or shape of the object matched that implied by the sentence, both immediately after reading the complete list of sentences and after a 45-min delay. These results suggest that previously found match effects were not due to strategic imagery and show that details of sensorimotor simulations are retained over longer periods.     

The effect of non-verbal information on the recall of negation

The influence of non-verbal information on storage of different versions of negated sentences was investigated in a one-trial learning experiment. The negation governed either the subject, the object, or the predicate of the sentence. One group was presented with the sentences together with pictures. Another group the sentences only. The picture which was shown with a sentence represented the sentence content with an alternative for the negated concept. It was found that pictorial information had an effect on the recall of the sentences and that this effect is different for the different sentence versions.     

Negation in context: Evidence from the visual world paradigm

Literature assumes that negation is more difficult to understand than affirmation, but this might depend on the pragmatic context. The goal of this paper is to show that pragmatic knowledge modulates the unfolding processing of negation due to the previous activation of the negated situation. To test this, we used the visual world paradigm. In this task, we presented affirmative (e.g., her dad was rich) and negative sentences (e.g., her dad was not poor) while viewing two images of the affirmed and denied entities. The critical sentence in each item was preceded by one of three types of contexts: an inconsistent context (e.g., She supposed that her dad had little savings) that activates the negated situation (a poor man), a consistent context (e.g., She supposed that her dad had enough savings) that activates the actual situation (a rich man), or a neutral context (e.g., her dad lived on the other side of town) that activates neither of the two models previously suggested. The results corroborated our hypothesis. Pragmatics is implicated in the unfolding processing of negation. We found an increase in fixations on the target compared to the baseline for negative sentences at 800?ms in the neutral context, 600?ms in the inconsistent context, and 1450?ms in the consistent context. Thus, when the negated situation has been previously introduced via an inconsistent context, negation is facilitated.     

否定句理解中知觉仿真的动态过程

采用移动窗口阅读技术探讨否定句理解中被否定的情境和真实情境在头脑中的具体表征。实验材料包括否定句和图片,根据句子隐含形状与再认图片的匹配关系分为匹配和不匹配两个版本。实验1中句子呈现时间为700ms,结果发现匹配版本中图片再认时间明显短于不匹配版本,证实了否定句理解中被否定情境的知觉仿真。实验2中句子呈现时间延长到1000ms,结果两个版本图片再认时间没有差异,说明读者已经转为对否定句所表达的真实情境进行仿真。实验支持了知觉符号观并进一痔说明否常甸珈解中知带仿直和知慌符号瀚活是一个动杰的“两步击”的加工讨程。     

理解能力不同的个体抑制干扰信息的效率

根据多媒语言理解测试 ,筛选出汉语综合理解能力高、低不同的两组被试 ,采用固定速移动窗口阅读与选择性再认相结合的实验范式 ,在两个实验中考察了两组被试在理解加工汉语双字词和两从句复合句的过程中对外在干扰信息的抑制效率。词汇加工与句子加工两个实验的结果一致表明 :不同语言理解能力的个体在抑制干扰信息的效率上存在差异 ,低理解能力者的抑制效率也较低 ;抑制效率受到干扰材料意义性的影响 ,越有意义的干扰越难以被抑制     

状态不确定独立否定句的加工机制

采用自定步速阅读方法与图片核证范式(picture verification paradigm)探讨状态不确定独立否定句(如“裙子不是红色的”)的动态表征过程, 包括3个实验。结果发现：(1)在否定加工的初期, 即250 ms间隔时间条件下, 读者表征事件的否定状态; 肯定句已经通达事件的实际状态。(2)在否定加工的中期, 即750 ms间隔时间条件下, 读者仍然表征事件的否定状态, 但已开始对事件的备择选项进行搜索; 肯定句仍然保持对事件实际状态的表征。(3)在否定加工的后期, 即1500 ms间隔时间条件下, 读者表征否定标记与事件的否定状态, 同时完成对备择选项的搜索; 肯定句依旧保持对事件实际状态的表征。据此, 本文提出的锚激活与限制满足模型(anchor-based activation and satisfaction constrained model)得到初步证明。     

强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制

2个眼动实验分别探讨强弱语义语境下的否定句加工机制, 以便考察语言理解是命题表征的过程还是经验模拟的过程, 抑或是二者兼具。在实验中, 被试首先听句子(强语义语境：如“胳膊不是弯曲的”的备择选项为“伸直的胳膊”, 其中“弯曲−伸直”为具有反义关系的强语义连接关系; 弱语义语境：如加工“裙子不是蓝色的”的备择选项为“黑色的裙子”, “蓝色−黑色”为弱语义连接关系), 然后会看到4张同时呈现的图片, 被试的任务是按键选择与句子描述匹配的图片。结果发现, 在强语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(201~600 ms时窗)对描述事件否定状态的图片(弯曲的胳膊)与描述事件实际状态的图片(伸直的胳膊)的注视概率没有差别, 晚期(601 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片的注视概率更高; 弱语义语境条件下, 被试在早期(401~600 ms)仅对描述事件否定状态的图片(蓝裙子)注视概率更高, 晚期(801 ms后)仅对描述事件实际状态的图片(黑色裙子)注视概率更高; 并且, 都对描述事件否定状态的图片的注视概率低于随机水平。结果支持符号依存假设和抑制假设。     

Differences in Scope Assignments for Child and Adult Speakers of Mandarin

The present study used a Truth Value Judgment Task to investigate whether changes in sentence structure lead to corresponding changes in the assignment of scope relations by Mandarin-speaking children and adults. In one condition, participants were presented with ordinary negative sentences containing disjunction; this condition was designed to verify the existing claim that disjunction is a positive polarity item for adult speakers of Mandarin, but not for child speakers. In a second condition, participants were presented with negative sentences where the disjunction phrase was preposed from object position; this condition was designed to examine the extent to which changes in sentence structure can result in changes in scope assignments to negated disjunctions. The results indicate that the preposed disjunction phrase undergoes reconstruction for children, whereas reconstruction is blocked for adults. This finding also suggests that Mandarin-speaking children and adults exhibit different scope preferences for negated disjunctions, regardless of where the disjunction phrase appears in the surface syntax.     

Not Propositions

Current computational accounts of meaning in the cognitive sciences are based on abstract, amodal symbols (e.g., nodes, links, propositions) that are arbitrarily related to their referents. We argue that such accounts lack convincing empirical support and that they do not provide a satisfactory account for linguistic meaning. One historic set of results supporting the abstract symbol view has come from investigation into comprehension of negated sentences, such as “The buttons are not black.” These sentences are presumed to be understood as two propositions composed of abstract symbols. One proposition corresponds to “the buttons are black,” and it is embedded in another proposition corresponding to “it is not true.” Thus, the propositional account predicts (a) that comprehension of negated sentences should take longer than comprehension of the corresponding positive sentence (because of the time needed to construct the embedding), but (b) that the resulting embedded propositions are informationally equivalent (but of opposite valence) to the simple proposition underlying the positive sentence. Contrary to these predictions, Experiment 1 demonstrates that negated sentences out of context are interpreted as situationally ambiguous, that is, as conveying less specific information than positive sentences. Furthermore, Experiment 2 demonstrates that when negated sentences are used in an appropriate context, readers do not take longer to understand them. Thus, difficulty with negation is demonstrated to be an artifact of presentation out of context. After discussing other serious problems with the use of abstract symbols, we describe the Indexical Hypothesis. This embodied account of meaning does not depend on abstract symbols, and hence it provides a more satisfactory account of meaning.     

Anticipatory looks reveal expectations about discourse relations

Previous research provides evidence for expectation-driven processing within sentences at phonological, lexical, and syntactic levels of linguistic structure. Less well-established is whether comprehenders also anticipate pragmatic relationships between sentences. To address this, we evaluate a unit of discourse structure that comprehenders must infer to hold between sentences in order for a discourse to make sense—the intersentential coherence relation. In a novel eyetracking paradigm, we trained participants to associate particular spatial locations with particular coherence relations. Experiment 1 shows that the subset of listeners who successfully acquired the location∼relation mappings during training subsequently looked to these locations during testing in response to a coherence–signaling intersentential connective. Experiment 2 finds that listeners’ looks during sentences containing coherence-biasing verbs reveal expectations about upcoming sentence types. This work extends existing research on prediction beyond sentence-internal structure and provides a new methodology for examining the cues that comprehenders use to establish relationships at the discourse level.     

类别型状态不确定独立否定句的加工机制：来自眼动实验的证据

探讨类别型状态不确定独立否定句(如“裙子不是蓝色的”)的动态表征过程。实验1和实验2分别仅给被试提供“与事件备择选项一致的图片” (红色裙子)和“含有否定标签的与事件否定状态一致的图片” (含有否定标签的蓝色裙子); 实验3同时提供以上两种选项。结果发现：3个实验中被试在早期均对“与事件否定状态一致的图片”注视概率更高, 在晚期阶段, 实验1仅对“与事件备择选项一致的图片” 注视概率更高, 实验2和实验3均仅对“含有否定标签的与事件否定状态一致的图片”注视概率更高, 并且选择为事件的最终状态; 实验4的评定结果表明, 当被试有充裕时间完成任务时, 37名评定者中有30名选择“与事件备择选项一致的图片”为事件的最终状态。4个实验的结果为锚激活与限制满足模型和抑制假设提供了进一步证据。     

Effects of negation and situational presence on the accessibility of text information

In 2 experiments, participants read narratives containing a color term that was mentioned either within the scope of an explicit negative or not, and with the described situation being such that the color was either present or not. Accessibility of the color term was measured by means of a probe-recognition task either 500 ms (Experiment 1) or 1,500 ms (Experiment 2) after participants read the sentence mentioning color. After the 500-ms delay, the accessibility of the color term was influenced by the structure of the sentence. After the 1,500-ms delay, the accessibility was influenced by the content of the described situation. These results are consistent with the view that comprehenders construct a linguistic representation of the text as well as a situation model in which only present properties are represented. An alternative account, according to which comprehenders only construct a perceptual simulation of the described situation, is discussed.     

Differences in semantic encoding as a function of reading comprehension skill

Using a modified Stroop procedure, we examined the extent to which the semantic encoding of a word is governed by the context within which that word appears. Good and poor comprehenders named the color of target words following their reading of either sentences or single words representing the object nouns of the sentences. Target words represented contextually emphasized (appropriate) attributes of the object nouns, nonemphasized (inappropriate) attributes of these nouns, or object attributes not related to these nouns (neutral). For single-word contexts, all subjects exhibited equal semantic interference to appropriate and inappropriate targets, relative to neutral targets. For sentence contexts, however, good comprehenders exhibited semantic interference only to appropriate targets, whereas poor comprehenders again exhibited equal interference to appropriate and inappropriate targets. These findings suggest that differences in comprehension skill may be attributable, at least in part, to fundamental differences in the way in which sentences are semantically encoded.     

句子加工水平上对外在干扰的抑制机制

通过 2个实验 ,以自控速移动窗口阅读与选择性再认相结合的实验范式 ,考察了语言理解能力高、低不同的 2组大学生被试在理解加工汉语两从句复合句的过程中抑制外在干扰信息的能力。结果表明 :抑制机制的效率受干扰材料的意义性及与目标材料的话题关系性的影响 ;在较高干扰强度的条件下 ,不同语言理解能力的个体在抑制机制上存在差异 ,低理解能力者抑制干扰信息的效率较低。     

汉语确定性无界否定句模拟加工的时间进程

以往关于否定句理解的心理模拟过程是一步完成的还是两步完成的, 结果并不一致, 这与各个研究使用的实验材料类型有关。本研究以汉语确定性无界否定句为研究对象, 采用句-图匹配范式和2(句子类型：汉语确定性无界肯定句和汉语确定性无界否定句) × 2 (图片描绘事物状态与句子描述的事物状态的匹配类型：匹配与不匹配)被试内实验设计, 以对图片判断的反应时和正确率为指标, 探讨其理解的早期(250 ms)、中期(750 ms)和晚期(1500 ms)的心理模拟过程。研究结果表明：确定性无界否定句理解的心理模拟是分两步进行的, 首先模拟的是否定句的被否定状态, 随着加工时间的推进, 完成了对确定性无界否定句的第二步模拟即对实际状态的模拟。但是, 比其他类型否定句的模拟过程所用的时间要短, 即在阅读理解的中期就完成了心理模拟。     

Perceptual simulation in developing language comprehension

We tested an embodied account of language proposing that comprehenders create perceptual simulations of the events they hear and read about. In Experiment 1, children (ages 7–13 years) performed a picture verification task. Each picture was preceded by a prerecorded spoken sentence describing an entity whose shape or orientation matched or mismatched the depicted object. Responses were faster for matching pictures, suggesting that participants had formed perceptual-like situation models of the sentences. The advantage for matching pictures did not increase with age. Experiment 2 extended these findings to the domain of written language. Participants (ages 7–10 years) of high and low word reading ability verified pictures after reading sentences aloud. The results suggest that even when reading is effortful, children construct a perceptual simulation of the described events. We propose that perceptual simulation plays a more central role in developing language comprehension than was previously thought.     

Instantiation in skilled and less skilled comprehenders

Previous research has shown that adults tend to infer particular meanings of words, according to their context, a process that has been termed instantiation. An experiment was carried out to investigate the relation between 7 to 8 year olds' skill at reading comprehension and their ability to instantiate. A cued recall paradigm was used: the subjects were presented with a series of short sentences, and either the general noun that had appeared in the original sentence, or a particular noun that fitted the context, was given as a cue. The results showed that both skilled and less skilled comprehenders recalled the original sentences equally well, given the original nouns, but that the performance of the skilled group was superior when they were given the particular word cues, indicating that the skilled comprehenders were instantiating more readily. An independent test showed that their superior performance was not attributable to their better general knowledge.