Three kinds of rhymes: An ERP study

In a simple prime-target visual rhyming paradigm, pairs of words, nonwords, and single letters elicited similar event-related potential (ERP) rhyming effects in young adults. Within each condition, primes elicited contingent negative variation (CNV) while nonrhyming targets elicited more negative waveforms than rhyming targets within the 320-500ms (N400/N450) time window. The target rhyming effect, apparently primarily an index of phonological processing, was similar across conditions but tended to be smaller in mean amplitude for letters. One of the first reports of such a letter rhyming effect in the ERP literature, these findings could be important developmentally because letter rhyme tasks simultaneously index the two best predictors of ease of learning to read: letter name knowledge and phonological awareness.     

不同注意条件下动态面孔表情识别的ERP研究

利用ERP技术对16名被试在不同注意负荷下对动态表情识别的脑时程特点进行了考察,结果发现：N170成分不受注意负荷和表情效价影响;低注意负荷条件下动态表情加工早期负性表情诱发的EPN成分（early posterior negativity）显著大于中性、正性表情,后期高级分析阶段正、负性表情均诱发明显的LPP成分（late positive potentials）,且负性较正性表情诱发更大的LPP成分;而在高注意负荷条件下并未发现表情识别诱发明显的EPN或LPP成分。这些结果说明,动态表情识别明显受到注意资源调节,只有在注意资源不断增加时表情加工才会出现注意偏向效应,尤以负性表情的加工优势最为凸显且持久,正性表情相对微弱和短暂。     

风险对两类跨期选择的影响：一项ERP研究

该研究利用ERP技术,采用伴随风险的跨期选择任务比较了两类跨期选择（立即vs.延迟、延迟vs.延迟）,并探究了风险（零风险、低风险、高风险）对两者跨期选择影响的神经动力学机制。ERP结果显示,对于立即vs.延迟和延迟vs.延迟,在N2和N400上前者大于后者,在LPC上后者大于前者;风险对两者在时程上的影响趋于一致。因此,其加工可能是先对奖赏在风险维度上进行折扣,再与延迟时间进行整合形成奖赏预期,而后做出选择。     

审时度势 科学应对——谈新甲型H1N1流感的应对

面对新甲型H1N1的流行,我国在早期采取了严格的防控措施。而随着疫情的不断发展,将其防控策略进行了调整。这在各界引起了诸多的争论。由于流感为呼吸道传染病,完全切断传播途径非常困难。而且新甲型H1N1传播迅速、人群普遍易感、控制传染源困难等原因,无法完全避免新甲型H1N1流感的流行。因此现阶段应将防控目标定位在压峰缓疫,医疗的重点应放在危重患者的救治上,降低病死率,尽可能减少疾病流行对全社会各方面的影响。     

Gesture and metaphor comprehension: Electrophysiological evidence of cross-modal coordination by audiovisual stimulation

In recent years, studies have suggested that gestures influence comprehension of linguistic expressions, for example, eliciting an N400 component in response to a speech/gesture mismatch. In this paper, we investigate the role of gestural information in the understanding of metaphors. Event related potentials (ERPs) were recorded while participants viewed video clips of an actor uttering metaphorical expressions and producing bodily gestures that were congruent or incongruent with the metaphorical meaning of such expressions. This modality of stimuli presentation allows a more ecological approach to meaning integration. When ERPs were calculated using gesture stroke as time-lock event, gesture incongruity with metaphorical expression modulated the amplitude of the N400 and of the late positive complex (LPC). This suggests that gestural and speech information are combined online to make sense of the interlocutor’s linguistic production in an early stage of metaphor comprehension. Our data favor the idea that meaning construction is globally integrative and highly context-sensitive.     

网络语言的创造性加工过程:新颖N400与LPC

采用事件相关电位(ERP)技术比较在语义违反范式下网络语言和标准汉语的语义加工差异。结果发现:(1)不管是网络语言还是标准汉语,相对于语义一致条件,语义不一致条件在400 ms诱发了一个更负的负成分,但网络语言的经典N400差异波具有更晚的潜伏期和更长的持续时间;(2)溯源结果发现,网络语言和标准汉语的经典N400差异波的早期和晚期的定位均分别定位于丘脑和前扣带回,表明N400延迟效应是由个体对网络语言相对低的流利度所致,反映了认知冲突的延续;(3)在语义一致性条件下,网络语言比标准汉语诱发了一个更负的新颖N400和一个更正的晚期正成分(LPC),分别定位于前扣带回和海马,二者分别反映了新颖网络含义的识别以及新颖语义信息的整合与新颖语义联结的形成。ERP结果支持了网络语言加工属于创造性思维过程。     

认知负荷对疼痛共情的影响:来自ERP研究的证据

先前研究表明,对他人的疼痛共情受到多种因素的调节。认知负荷对疼痛共情的调节作用尚无研究。本研究使用事件相关电位技术探究高低认知负荷对疼痛共情神经加工过程的影响。实验通过不同长度的数字串记忆任务,形成高/低两种认知负荷,要求被试在不同认知负荷条件下观看他人处于疼痛/不疼痛情境下的图片,同时记录被试的在观看图片时的EEG数据。通过比较不同条件下观看图片诱发的ERP成分发现:早期成分P2和N2上认知负荷水平与图片类型出现了显著的交互作用,即在高认知负荷下疼痛图片诱发的波幅与非疼痛图片诱发的波幅差异显著,而低认知负荷下两种图片诱发的波幅差异不显著。这表明认知负荷主要影响疼痛共情加工的早期、自动化加工阶段。相比较于低认知负荷条件下,在高认知负荷下他人的疼痛获得了更好的加工。     

Opposite ERP effects for conscious and unconscious semantic processing under continuous flash suppression

We examined whether semantic processing occurs without awareness using continuous flash suppression (CFS). In two priming tasks, participants were required to judge whether a target was a word or a non-word, and to report whether the masked prime was visible. Experiment 1 manipulated the lexical congruency between the prime-target pairs and Experiment 2 manipulated their semantic relatedness. Despite the absence of behavioral priming effects (Experiment 1), the ERP results revealed that an N4 component was sensitive to the prime-target lexical congruency (Experiment 1) and semantic relatedness (Experiment 2) when the prime was rendered invisible under CFS. However, these results were reversed with respect to those that emerged when the stimuli were perceived consciously. Our findings suggest that some form of lexical and semantic processing can occur during CFS-induced unawareness, but are associated with different electrophysiological outcomes.     

Novel metaphors appear anomalous at least momentarily: evidence from N400

This study addresses a central question in perception of novel figurative language: whether it is interpreted intelligently and figuratively immediately, or only after a literal interpretation fails. Eighty sentence frames that could plausibly end with a literal, truly anomalous, or figurative word were created. After validation for meaningfulness and figurativeness, the 240 sentences were presented to 11 subjects for event related potential (ERP) recording. ERP's first 200 ms is believed to reflect the structuring of the input; the prominence of a dip at around 400 ms (N400) is said to relate inversely to how expected a word is. Results showed no difference between anomalous and metaphoric ERPs in the early window, metaphoric and literal ERPs converging 300-500 ms after the ending, and significant N400s only for anomalous endings. A follow-up study showed that the metaphoric endings were less frequent (in standardized word norms) than were the anomalous and literal endings and that there were significant differences in cloze probabilities (determined from 24 new subjects) among the three ending types: literal > metaphoric > anomalous. It is possible that the low frequency of the metaphoric element and lower cloze probability of the anomalous one contributed to the processes reflected in the early window, while the incongruity and near-zero cloze probability of the anomalous endings produced an N400 effect in them alone. The structure or parse derived for metaphor during the early window appears to yield a preliminary interpretation suggesting anomaly, while semantic analysis reflected in the later window renders a plausible figurative interpretation.     

Meaningful processing of meaningless stimuli: the influence of perceptual experience on early visual processing of faces

The N170 is an event-related potential component associated with extrastriate visual mechanisms involved in detecting human faces and leading to their characteristic structural encoding. Consequently the N170 discriminates the processing of stimuli providing physiognomic information from the processing of other, similarly complex, visual patterns. We have used this effect to explore the top-down influence of newly acquired experience on the initial visual categorization of physiognomic stimuli. Schematic faces having the inner components mislocated did not elicit an N170 effect in naive participants. However, after normally configured versions of the schematic faces were exposed, suggesting what the ambiguous patterns represented, the same patterns elicited an N170 effect as conspicuous as that elicited by regular schematic faces. This priming effect, which changed the visual processing of distorted faces in extrastriate regions, could not be explained by post-perceptual decisions. Although accounts based on changes in focal attention, or within-vision constraints could not be categorically rejected, this outcome might suggest cognitive penetrability of early visual categorization.