影响动作图片命名的因素

图片是研究词汇习得与加工的重要材料, 而名词和动词是最主要的两类实词。然而, 目前较少有研究考察汉语中的动词加工过程, 也没有标准化的动词图片库。本研究通过成人图片命名和评定任务, 获得了265张动词图片的中文名称、命名反应时, 以及H值、命名一致性、熟悉性、视觉复杂性、表象一致性和口语习得年龄等指标, 同时也探索了影响动作图片命名反应时的因素。逐步回归分析结果发现, H值、熟悉性和视觉复杂性这三个变量可解释动词图片命名反应时72.4%的变异。此外, 本研究根据图片命名反应时将动词图片加工难度分成了五个等级。研究发现, 与名词图片相比, 动词图片的视觉复杂性更高、命名一致性更低、命名反应时更长。本研究获得的各项心理语言学指标有望为后续关于动词加工的实验研究提供重要的参考资料。     

Teaching a complex verbal response to a hearing-impaired girl

A 3-yr-old hearing-impaired girl, who used neither the article "the" nor the auxiliary verb "is" was taught to use these words in describing a picture, initially through imitation and then in response to the command, "Tell me about this". As a result, she was able to use sentences in the present progressive form to describe a number of pictures on which she had received no training. This newly acquired behavior was subsequently extinguished and then reinstated.     

Verb aspect and perceptual simulations

Two experiments investigate the influence of verb aspect on situation representations. The results demonstrate that comprehenders use verb aspect as a cue to regulate the activation of ongoing simulations of situations over time. Experiment 1 measured word-by-word reading as well as sensibility judgements on sentences in which a target object word had been replaced by a picture. For the past imperfective sentences, participants were faster to process the picture, the two words following the picture, and the sensibility judgements when objects were pictured in use rather than not in use. However, this in-use facilitation was limited to processing of the picture for the past perfect sentences. Experiment 2 served as a control to ensure that the use effect and its interaction with verb aspect were a result of contextual manipulations rather than surface features of the pictures themselves. The results are interpreted within the framework of perceptual simulations during language comprehension.     

Does text–picture integration also occur with longer text segments?

Text–picture integration is one of the most important cognitive processes when reading illustrated text. There is empirical evidence that text‐picture integration takes place when learning with pictures combined with single sentences. The present experiment investigated whether text–picture integration also takes place when the single sentences are embedded into longer text segments and hence when materials become more complex. In a within‐subjects design, 43 participants read an illustrated story, in which the different combinations of general and specific sentences and pictures, respectively, were embedded. In line with previous findings, participants were more likely to falsely recognize specific versions of the sentences after having studied their general versions combined with specific pictures. Thus, the experiment shows that text–picture integration also occurs when learners have to read longer text passages combined with pictures.     

Two types of information in picture memory.

It is assumed that recognition memory for pictures is based on two types of information. The first is information about specific details in a picture. The process of encoding this type of information is identified with what N. H. Mackworth and others have termed looking at "informative areas" in pictures. The second informational component is designated as "general visual information." Two experiments were carried out investigating (a) the extent to which recognition responses to pictures are based on specific detail vs. general visual information, (b) whether the amount of specific detail information may be manipulated by varying the complexity of a target picture, and (c) the rate at which the two types of information are acquired. The results indicate that the rate of encoding specific details varies with the number of potential informative areas in a pictures and, given that a detail is encoded, memory performance is not substantially affected by target complexity, exposure time, or presence or absence of a mask.     

Visual arguments

Three experiments investigated the use of verb argument structure by tracking participants' eye movements across a set of related pictures as they listened to sentences. The assumption was that listeners would naturally look at relevant pictures as they were mentioned or implied. The primary hypothesis was that a verb would implicitly introduce relevant entities (linguistic arguments) that had not yet been mentioned, and thus a picture corresponding to such an entity would draw anticipatory looks. For example, upon hearing ...mother suggested..., participants would look at a potential recipient of the suggestion. The only explicit task was responding to comprehension questions. Experiments 1 and 2 manipulated both the argument structure of the verb and the typicality/co-occurrence frequency of the target argument/adjunct, in order to distinguish between anticipatory looks to arguments specifically and anticipatory looks to pictures that were strongly associated with the verb, but did not have the linguistic status of argument. Experiment 3 manipulated argument status alone. In Experiments 1 and 3, there were more anticipatory looks to potential arguments than to potential adjuncts, beginning about 500 ms after the acoustic onset of the verb. Experiment 2 revealed a main effect of typicality. These findings indicate that both real world knowledge and argument structure guide visual attention within this paradigm, but that argument structure has a privileged status in focusing listener attention on relevant aspects of a visual scene.     

Orthographic directionality and thematic role illustration in English and Arabic

This study tested the hypotheses that people had a bias for drawing agents on the left of a picture when given a verb stimulus targeting an active or passive event (e.g., "kicked" or "is kicked") and that orthographic directionality would influence the way events were illustrated. Monolingual English speakers, who read and write left-to-right, and Arabic speakers, who read and write right-to-left, drew agents and patients in response to verb stimuli. We found no significant orthographic directionality effects and no preference for positioning agents on the left of pictures in either group or sentence type. Instead, participants drew agents on the right regardless of language or sentence type, and this was exaggerated in English speakers illustrating passive verbs. These findings support the existence of a preference for placing agents in the right hemispace that may result from asymmetrical hemispheric (i.e., left>right) activation induced by language processing. Our results are consistent with findings that people prefer pictures in which focus is on the right, a preference strongest in pictures with no implicit directionality of movement. This suggests that the methodology of the current study encouraged a static rather than dynamic interpretation of the verb in most participants.     

Influencesicture context on object recognition

The effect of sorrounding context on the recognition of objects from briefly presented pictures was investigated. Forty-eight undergraduates saw 100 msec displays of either line drawings containing several objects embedded in context or drawings of object arrays without background context. Following each exposure they were required to select from among four objects the one that had been contained in the picture. Presentation of objects in context aided recognition only when incorrect response alternatives were inconsistent with the picture context. The results suggest that context contributes to the construction of a general characterization of the pictures which provides expectancies regarding the identity of specific objects.     

Foreshortened tiles in paths converging on an observer viewing a picture: Elevation and visual angle ratio determine perceived size

Observers were shown wide-angle pictures of tiles on a ground plane and were asked about the aspect ratios of the tiles. The observers viewed the pictures from a fixed center of projection. Some of the tiles were in a path coming straight toward the observer. In one picture, the path came from the center of the picture, and in two others the path came from the left side of the picture (one from 30° and one from 45° to the left of the center, from the observer’s point of view). The apparent aspect ratios were a function of the elevations of the tiles and the ratios of visual angles of the sides of the tiles. Judgments were identical for all three paths. The local slant of the picture surface was not a significant factor.     

Picture versus question elaboration on young children's learning of sentences containing high- and low-probability content

The main purpose of the two experiments reported here was to compare the potency of two types of elaboration on children's learning of sentence content: The effects of partial picture adjuncts were compared to the effects produced by answering "why"-questions about the relationships specified in the sentences. Five- to seven-year-old children heard sentences of the form, subject/verb/direct object/preposition/instrument. Sentences contained either a high-probability or a low-probability instrument given the semantic context. In Experiment 1, sentences either were accompanied by a partial picture depicting the sentence action but omitting the instrument or were presented without a partial picture accompaniment. Recall was improved by provision of partial pictures at study. In Experiment 2, the sentences were accompanied by complete pictures depicting the sentence content. In both experiments, questioning significantly reduced recall of high-probability sentences, with recall of instruments affected especially negatively. Evidence is presented that insufficient attention to instruments may have been one mechanism mediating depressed recall of high- compared to low-probability instruments in the questioned conditions. In summary, partial pictures improved cued recall of sentences in this study; in contrast, all significant effects produced by answering why-questions were negative ones (i.e., later recall was reduced following interrogation at study).     

Temporal binding during apparent movement of the human body

Alternating between static images of human bodies with an appropriate interstimulus interval (ISI) produces apparent biological motion. Here we investigate links between apparent biological motion and time perception. We presented two pictures of the initial and final positions of a human movement separated by six different ISIs. The shortest movement path between two positions was always biomechanically impossible. Participants performed two tasks: In an explicit task, participants judged whether they saw the longer, feasible movement path between the two postures, or the shorter, biomechanically impossible path. In an implicit task, participants judged the duration of a white square surrounding the picture sequence. At longer ISIs participants were more likely to see a longer, feasible movement path (explicit task) and underestimated the duration of body picture pairs, compared to trials displaying degraded body pictures (implicit task). We argue that perceiving apparent biological motion involves temporal binding of two static pictures into a continuous movement. Such temporal binding may be mediated by a top-down mechanism that produces a percept of biological motion in the absence of any retinal motion.     

Organization in visual episodic memory: relationships between verbalized knowledge, strategy use, and performance

Relationships between verbalized knowledge (metamemory), strategy use, and performance were examined in a memory task for visually presented episodes. Kindergarten, second-grade, and fifth-grade students were asked to reconstruct a sequence of pictures forming an episode from an array of original pictures and foils. The episodes varied on two dimensions; materials type and the logic of the sequence. Materials were either typical (familiar animal characters and scenes) or atypical (geometric figures) story materials. Sequences either readily conveyed a story (logical) or were rearranged to present a random ordering of pictures (illogical). Children were questioned about their use of a story line to help remember the picture sequences (general questioning) and were asked more specific questions concerning the reasons for their picture selection during the task (specific questioning). Children at all ages recalled logical sequences better than illogical ones. Second- and fifth-grade children recalled animal episodes better than geometric form episodes. Children at all ages showed a correspondence between strategy use and metamemory as assessed by verbalization of relationships among pictures during the specific questioning. However, when the more typical general question format was used to assess metamemory, strategy use preceded verbalized knowledge of strategy use.     

习得年龄对客体和动作图画口语命名的不同影响：ERP研究

词汇习得年龄指人们最早理解单词意义时的年龄, 已有研究发现早习得词汇的阅读反应时间短于晚习得词汇, 研究者对于词汇习得年龄效应的认知机制存在争论。本研究运用事件相关电位技术, 考察了词汇习得年龄(早与晚)对客体图画和动作图画命名的影响。研究中采用图画命名任务, 要求被试在看到图画后迅速且准确地说出图画名称。结果发现早习得名词的命名快于晚习得名词, 而早习得动词的命名却慢于晚习得动词; 习得年龄对于名词产生的影响发生在图画呈现后的250~300 ms之间, 表现为早习得名词波幅小于晚习得名词, 而习得年龄对于动词产生的影响发生在图画呈现后的200~600 ms之间, 表现为早习得动词波幅大于晚习得动词。这表明名词产生中的习得年龄效应发生在词汇选择阶段, 支持了语义假设的观点; 动词产生过程中的习得年龄效应出现在多个加工阶段, 包括了词汇选择、音韵编码和语音编码阶段, 这与动词语义的多重性及其与动作相关的脑区激活有关, 支持了网络可塑性假说的观点。     

Capacity demands of phoneme selection in word production: new evidence from dual-task experiments

Three dual-task experiments investigated the capacity demands of phoneme selection in picture naming. On each trial, participants named a target picture (Task 1) and carried out a tone discrimination task (Task 2). To vary the time required for phoneme selection, the authors combined the targets with phonologically related or unrelated distractor pictures (Experiment 1) or words, which were clearly visible (Experiment 2) or masked (Experiment 3). When pictures or masked words were presented, the tone discrimination and picture naming latencies were shorter in the related condition than in the unrelated condition, which indicates that phoneme selection requires central processing capacity. However, when the distractor words were clearly visible, the facilitatory effect was confined to the picture naming latencies. This pattern arose because the visible related distractor words facilitated phoneme selection but slowed down speech monitoring processes that had to be completed before the response to the tone could be selected.     

Enhanced memory for emotional pictures: A product of increased attention to affective stimuli?

The current experiment addressed the question, is enhanced memory for emotional pictures due to increased attention to affective stimuli? Participants viewed pairs of pictures (emotional-neutral or neutral-neutral) whilst their eye movements were recorded; participants had to decide which picture out of each pair they preferred. There was increased attention to positive pictures and decreased attention to negative images during picture viewing. Despite this, when a recognition test was given 1 week later, memory enhancements were found for negative pictures only. Moreover, although there was a general correlation between total inspection time and memory performance, this reliability was clear only for neutral pictures, and not for emotional images. The results suggest that memory advantages for emotional pictures can occur without increased attention to such images.     

Different confidence-accuracy relationships for feature-based and familiarity-based memories

Participants studied naturalistic pictures presented for varying brief durations and then received a recognition test on which they indicated whether each picture was old or new and rated their confidence. In 1 experiment they indicated whether each "old"/"new" response was based on memory for a specific feature in the picture or instead on the picture's general familiarity; in another experiment, we defined pictures that tended to elicit feature versus familiarity responses. Thus, feature/familiarity was a dependent variable in 1 experiment and an independent variable in the other. In both experiments feature-based responses were more accurate than those that were familiarity based, and confidence and accuracy increased with duration for both response types. However, when confidence was controlled for, mean accuracy was higher for familiarity-based than for feature-based responses. The theoretical implication is that confidence and accuracy arise from different underlying information. The applied implication is that confidence differences should not be taken as implying accuracy differences when the phenomenal basis of the memory reports differ.     

Episodic effects on picture identification: implications for theories of concept learning and theories of memory

The effects of differences in study processing on free recall of picture names and on generalization in picture identification were investigated. Experience with degraded pictures produced poorer subsequent free recall of picture names than did naming intact pictures. For the test of picture identification, pictures that were identical to a studied picture, pictures that shared a name with a studied picture (same name), and new test pictures were presented, and the amount of clarification required to identify a picture was measured. Experience with degraded pictures produced better subsequent identification of identical test pictures but poorer later identification of same-name test pictures than did naming intact pictures. The importance of these episodic effects for theories of concept learning and theories of memory is discussed. It is argued that distinctions between memory systems (e.g., episodic-semantic) must be couched in terms of a theory of concept learning and that the data are inconsistent with a simple distinction.     

A developmental shift from similar to language-specific strategies in verb acquisition: A comparison of English,Spanish, and Japanese

The world’s languages draw on a common set of event components for their verb systems. Yet, these components are differentially distributed across languages. At what age do children begin to use language-specific patterns to narrow possible verb meanings? English-, Japanese-, and Spanish-speaking adults, toddlers, and preschoolers were shown videos of an animated star performing a novel manner along a novel path paired with a language-appropriate nonsense verb. They were then asked to extend that verb to either the same manner or the same path as in training. Across languages, toddlers (2- and 2.5-year-olds) revealed a significant preference for interpreting the verb as a path verb. In preschool (3- and 5-year-olds) and adulthood, the participants displayed language-specific patterns of verb construal. These findings illuminate the way in which verb construal comes to reflect the properties of the input language.     

Brightness differences influence the evaluation of affective pictures

We explored the possibility of a general brightness bias: brighter pictures are evaluated more positively, while darker pictures are evaluated more negatively. In Study 1 we found that positive pictures are brighter than negative pictures in two affective picture databases (the IAPS and the GAPED). Study 2 revealed that because researchers select affective pictures on the extremity of their affective rating without controlling for brightness differences, pictures used in positive conditions of experiments were on average brighter than those used in negative conditions. Going beyond correlational support for our hypothesis, Studies 3 and 4 showed that brighter versions of neutral pictures were evaluated more positively than darker versions of the same picture. Study 5 revealed that people categorised positive words more quickly than negative words after a bright picture prime, and vice versa for negative pictures. Together, these studies provide strong support for the hypotheses that picture brightness influences evaluations.     

Problems brought about by "reading" a sequence of pictures

The "reading" of a sequence of narrative pictures has been studied as a specific cognitive area. Sequences of pictures were presented to children between 3 and 7 1/2 years old in either the right or wrong order. We studied four problems: the child's difficulty in seeing the same character throughout different representations, the liking-up process of several pictures into one story, the correlation between the temporal order and the spatial disposition of pictures, and the child's tendency to consider the setting of pictures as a puzzle to solve. The characteristic difficulties observed seem to be related to the double status of the picture, which is both a physical and a symbolic object. We set out to reconstruct the path taken from the initial dilemma in which a child finds herself/himself, caught between the signifier and the signified, up until the point where, all contradictions resolved, she/he definitively acquires the principles of the way in which a sequence of pictures functions. Although more or less distinct stages concerning the acquisition of different rules inherent in a sequence of pictures can be observed, the existence of transitional periods favors a continuous progression.