汉语焦点信息影响代词回指的电生理机制

作为话题延续和语篇衔接的重要手段, 代词是最为重要的回指形式之一。目前虽然有关代词回指的研究有很多, 但这些研究主要关注句法和语义因素如何影响回指加工, 很少考察话语(语用)层面的信息结构, 尤其是焦点结构, 如何影响回指解读, 也没有考察不同类型的焦点信息如何通过与句法角色、动词语义以及距离远近等因素的相互作用来决定回指解读。为此, 本项目将在以往研究的基础之上, 选择两种不同的焦点结构—— 自上而下的焦点(语言焦点)和自下而上的焦点(非语言焦点), 并借助高时间分辨率的ERP技术, 考察这两种不同类型的焦点信息对代词回指影响的异同, 以及它们与句法、语义和距离等因素相互作用于回指加工的认知和神经机制, 从而揭示在汉语句子理解中来自语言和非语言的信息通过何种关系模式影响回指加工和句子表征。具体研究问题包括：1)自上而下的焦点信息如何影响回指加工; 2)自下而上的焦点信息如何影响回指加工; 3)焦点结构、句法角色和动词语义对回指加工的综合影响。     

论语言的感知和理解

论语言的感知和理解李伯聪语言感知和理解的过程可以大致分为四个阶段：语音知觉阶段；语义理解阶段；句子和语篇的理解阶段；理解说话人实际意图的阶段。关于语言交际和语言理解的头一个哲学问题是：语言交际和语言理解何以是可能的？一个人为何能理解另一个人的话语？这是一个十分困难而复杂的问题。极简单地说，一个人之所以能理解另一个人的话语，一个极重要原因是不同的“自我”的个体——这时主要指“心灵”——具有同一性，不同的个体之间可以进行社会约定，而语言正是一种约定了的通讯工具。与语言理解有关的哲学问题还有哲学方法论方面的问题：我们必须从多元关系中研究语言感知和理解过程。以往，许多人习惯于从两极对立、二元关系中思考问题，这往往使得思维简单化。现在，我们看到我们至少需要从四元关系（听话人或读者、说话人或作者、话语或作品、外部世界）中研究理解过程，这样才能使有关的研究工作深入下去。语言理解过程中的确定性和不定性的关系问题是另一个哲学问题，由于语言理解过程是一个选择与建构统一过程，是一个主动性与带有主观性的过程，绝对的、完全的确定性是不可能达到的。但决不应把选择与建构机制看成“制造”不定性乃至专门进行“曲解”的机制。语言感知与理解过程     

二语句法加工的认知机制、影响因素及其神经基础

二语(L2)和母语(L1)在句法加工方面的差异是量的不同还是质的表现？当前, 该问题已成为语言认知领域研究的热点。研究表明, 二语句法加工受到二语习得年龄、语言熟练度、工作记忆、二语习得方式等因素的影响。有关二语句法加工的理论主要有浅层结构假说、D/P模型和统一竞争模型。未来研究应注重探讨二语句法加工中二语熟练度及二语习得年龄的交互效应, 同时也应当加强儿童二语句法加工能力的研究。     

语篇语境对句子理解的影响：来自N400的证据

N400作为语义违反的特异性ERP组分,其波幅反映了语义整合加工过程的难度,因此可将其作为研究语篇语境意义建构过程的一项重要指标。语篇语境可分为语言语境和非语言语境。前人一系列基于语篇水平的N400研究表明,从语义的角度上看,语言语境对句子理解具有制约和协调作用,其机制涉及词汇语义启动、场景适宜性、文字内容信息以及因果推理等方面;非语言语境对句子理解具有制约和补充作用,但其机制尚不明确。两种不同来源的语义信息在实时理解中是同时得到加工的     

语篇中指代词的分布规律与心理机制

语篇理解加工过程的一个重要环节就是对不同类型的指代词进行解释。首先介绍了指代词在语篇中的分布规律和对局部语篇连贯性的影响;其次,分析了话语信息结构和韵律特征在指代词加工中的作用;然后,揭示了语篇当中不同类型的指代词分布规律的心理机制;最后。对以前指代词研究的贡献和有待解决的问题进行了评述,并指出了几个可行的研究方法。     

演绎推理的形式和内容启动加工

聚焦推理加工初期,研究通过指导语操控主观加工倾向,考察不同指导语条件下内容可信度和形式有效性对演绎推理结果的影响,检验内容和形式两类加工过程的启动加工动态变化性。结果表明,指导语条件显著影响推理初期加工。在无提示指导语和形式判定指导语条件下,推理结果受到了形式有效性和内容可信度的影响;内容判定指导语下只受到了内容可信度的影响。证明主观加工倾向影响了内容和形式的启动加工关系,支持了动态变化性的假设。     

语言能力的老化机制：语言特异性与非特异性因素的共同作用

语言能力的衰退是由于一般认知能力衰退引起的, 还是由于语言加工系统的衰退引起的, 抑或是两者的共同作用?研究中测量了青年组和老年组的一般认知能力(加工速度、工作记忆和抑制能力), 以及在词汇、句子和语篇三个水平上的语言理解能力和语言产生能力。结果发现, 一般认知能力、语言理解和语言产生能力都存在年老化现象。分层回归分析表明, 一般认知能力对语言能力的贡献, 以及语言理解能力和产生能力之间的相互贡献在青年组和老年组中是不同的, 且存在词汇、句子和语篇水平上的差异。在词汇水平上, 青年人的成绩能够被一般认知能力和另一种语言能力所显著预测, 而老年人的成绩却不受一般认知因素影响; 在句子水平上, 青年人的成绩仍能被一般认知能力或另一种语言能力所解释, 但这两类变量都无法预测老年人的任务成绩; 在语篇水平上, 青年人理解任务的成绩显著地受到产生能力影响, 而老年人的理解和产生任务成绩则分别可以被一般认知能力和语言理解能力所解释。对组间差异的回归分析表明, 一般认知能力和另一种语言能力对组间差异都有显著贡献, 且前者的贡献大于后者。上述研究结果表明, 语言能力的老化是语言特异性因素和非特异性因素共同作用的结果。     

汉语儿童阅读障碍研究

阅读障碍分为获得性阅读障碍与发展性阅读障碍。前者是指后天脑损伤造成的阅读困难,后者是指在发展过程中没有明显的神经或器质性损伤、智力正常儿童的阅读水平显著落后于相应的智力水平或年龄。在英语国家,这两个课题是心理语言学界异常活跃的研究领域。因为对它的研究不但有助于人们了解语言加工的机制,而且有利于加深对语言加工过程中大脑功能的理解。     

语言和音乐层级结构的加工

语言和音乐在呈现过程中, 小单元相互结合组成更大的单元, 最终形成层级结构。已有研究表明, 听者能够将连续的语流和音乐切分成层级结构, 并在大脑中形成层级表征。在感知基础之上, 听者还能将新出现的语言和音乐事件整合到层级结构之中, 形成连贯理解, 最终顺利地完成交流过程。未来研究应剖析边界线索在层级结构感知中的作用, 考察不同层级整合过程的影响因素, 进一步探索语言和音乐层级结构加工的关系。     

言语交际中的歧义再探

歧义是一个语言形式对应多个意义内容之间矛盾的具体体现,是言语范畴中的一种普遍现象.在言语交际过程中,导致歧义产生的因素包括语内因素和语外因素.对于言语歧义的把握应同时兼顾说话人的表达和听话人的理解,不可只偏重一方.     

The Interpretation of Anaphoric Noun Phrases Time Course, and Effects of Overspecificity

Two experiments investigated the interpretation of anaphoric noun phrases, and in particular those thatcould only be linked to their antecedents via knowledge-based inferences. The first experiment showed that much of the inferential processing was carried out as the anaphoric noun phrase was read, although there was some indication that inferential processing continued to the end of the clause. The second experiment attempted to establish why anaphoric noun phrases that are more specific than their antecedents cause problems. It showed that the difficulty did not lie in adding the extra information carried by the anaphor to the representation of the referent. Rather, we suggest, putting extra information in the anaphoric noun phrase disrupts the process of linking that noun phrase to its antecedent.     

How do we process novel conceptual combinations in context?

Most theories of how people interpret novel noun-noun combinations (e.g., ghost forest) do not sufficiently address the role of context, which is surprising given that novel combinations are generally encountered in discourse contexts. We evaluated three hypotheses for the role of context in interpretation. The generation hypothesis states that interpretation is based on sense generation both in and out of context. The anaphor resolution hypothesis states that interpretation initially involves identifying a referent from the prior discourse context, and meaning generation occurs only if anaphoric processing fails. The dual-process hypothesis states that sense generation and anaphor resolution operate in parallel, and both may influence initial interpretation. In two experiments, we examined reading times on novel combinations when the dominant meaning (most likely interpretation) or subordinate meaning (infrequent interpretation) preceded or followed the combination in text. Results supported the dual-process hypothesis.     

The development of discourse mapping processes: the on-line interpretation of anaphoric expressions

The present research focuses on how children integrate the antecedent of different kinds of anaphor into their on-going interpretation of an utterance, and on the kinds of cues they use to help them to do this. These issues were studied by examining the on-line processing of three types of anaphoric devices—repeated noun phrases, general terms and pronoun anaphors. The data showed that by the age of five, anaphoric mapping processes in general are well-mastered, although all age-groups (5, 7, 10 year olds and adults) found general term anaphors more difficult to interpret. The major developmental differences concerned the processing of anaphoric pronouns. For five year olds, pronouns were primarily interpreted as devices which maintained the thematic subject of the discourse, but when there was no thematic subject they relied primarily on pragmatic plausibility in their assignment of pronominal co-reference. As children get older, they are able to take advantage of the lexical properties of pronouns and all three sources of information—lexical, pragmatic inference and the thematic structure of the discourse—play contributory roles in the assignment of reference to a pronoun.     

Working memory,reading ability and the effects of distance and typicality on anaphor resolution in children

We investigated the time course of anaphor resolution in children and whether this is modulated by individual differences in working memory and reading skill. The eye movements of 30 children (10–11 years) were monitored as they read short paragraphs in which (1) the semantic typicality of an antecedent and (2) its distance in relation to an anaphor were orthogonally manipulated. Children showed effects of distance and typicality on the anaphor itself and also on the word to the right of the anaphor, suggesting that anaphoric processing begins immediately but continues after the eyes have left the anaphor. Furthermore, children showed no evidence of resolving anaphors in the most difficult condition (distant atypical antecedent), suggesting that anaphoric processing that is demanding may not occur online in children of this age. Finally, working memory capacity and reading comprehension skill affect the magnitude and time course of typicality and distance effects during anaphoric processing.     

How do we process novel conceptual combinations in context?

Most theories of how people interpret novel noun–noun combinations (e.g., ghost forest) do not sufficiently address the role of context, which is surprising given that novel combinations are generally encountered in discourse contexts. We evaluated three hypotheses for the role of context in interpretation. The generation hypothesis states that interpretation is based on sense generation both in and out of context. The anaphor resolution hypothesis states that interpretation initially involves identifying a referent from the prior discourse context, and meaning generation occurs only if anaphoric processing fails. The dual-process hypothesis states that sense generation and anaphor resolution operate in parallel, and both may influence initial interpretation. In two experiments, we examined reading times on novel combinations when the dominant meaning (most likely interpretation) or subordinate meaning (infrequent interpretation) preceded or followed the combination in text. Results supported the dual-process hypothesis.     

指代者对其先行词可提取性的影响

三个实验,考察了在理解含有指代法表述的句子过程中,指代者对其先行词(即所指者)的可提取性的影响及其与先述参与者可提取性上的优势之间的关系。结果表明：(1)指代者对所指者的激活有促进作用,对非所指者有一定的抑制作用,从而提高了所指者的可提取性;(2)指代者对所指者和非所指者的这种作用有一定的时间进程;(3)指代者对所指者产生作用的时间进程随指代法表述的特性而变化;(4)句子先述参与者在可提取性上的优势是一种较普遍的认知现象。它与指代法表述中所指者的易提取性现象是一种动态的关系,指代法表述或者增强先述参与者可提取性的优势,或者会消除这种优势。     

Encoding processes and the recall of text

Two experiments investigated the proposition that the amount of cognitive effort expended to encode information will be directly related to recall of that information. While previous research has shown that amount of processing may affect recall, these studies have generally drawn on the notion of an elaborated memory representation to explain their results. In this study, the amount of processing required to correctly interpret anaphoric relations was varied while the elaboration of the memory trace was held constant. These experiments employed a self-paced reading paradigm in which subjects read a series of short paragraphs and later were cued to recall the final sentence of each paragraph. It was found that recall was significantly improved when more processing was required to correctly interpret the anaphoric relationship expressed in the final sentence. These findings suggest that encoding processes can affect recall performance without elaboration of the memory representation.     

Capacité de mémoire de travail et traitement du pronom chez l’enfant

The aim of this study was to explore the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and reading comprehension in children by testing the processing of pronouns. Two groups of nine- to ten-year-old children classified as high span and low span were administered a pronoun processing task. In this task, the computation of the antecedent referent for pronouns was varied by manipulating the distance between the pronoun and its antecedent and the availability of a gender cue. The results showed that compared to high-span children, low-span children experienced more difficulties in computing a pronoun's referent. High-span children spent longer reading sentences containing anaphoric pronouns when pronouns could not be resolved on the basis of the gender alone, suggesting that the pronouns were resolved as they were read. Low-span children tended to delay resolution until it was required by the task. In the question-answering times, low-span children were more adversely affected by distance than high-span children. Altogether these findings support the view that working memory capacity constrains resolution of anaphoric pronouns in children.     

文本阅读中回指推理发生的整合性因素

探讨回指距离、干扰词的精细描述、干扰词的典型性 对回指推理（先行词通达）的影响。包括2个实验,被试是华南师范大学一二年级本科生164名。采用移动窗口技术,要求被试阅读一定篇数（如,实验1a每个被试阅读15篇）的文章,对不同条件的探测词的反应时进行统计。实验1探讨干扰词精细描述类型（精细描述高和精细描述低）对回指推理的影响。结果表明,干扰的精细描述并非是影响回指推理的主要因素。实验2探讨干扰词和先行词的典型性类型的相对变化对回指推理的影响。结果表明高典型干扰在不同回指距离条件下都会对回指推理产生影响。本研究结果初步证明在影响回指推理的干扰典型性和干扰精细描述的二个因素中,起主要作用的是干扰的典型性     

The role of structure in coreference assignment during sentence comprehension

This paper examines the role of symtactic constraints on the reactivation and assignment of antecedents to explicit and implicit anaphoric elements during sentence comprehension. Evidence from on-line studies examining the time course of coreference processing supports the view that reactivation of potential antecedents is restricted by grammatical constraints when they are available. When structural information cannot serve to constrain antecedent selection, then pragmatic information may play a role, but only at a later point in processing.