Preschool children's use of cues to generic meaning

Sentences that refer to categories - generic sentences (e.g., "Dogs are friendly") - are frequent in speech addressed to young children and constitute an important means of knowledge transmission. However, detecting generic meaning may be challenging for young children, since it requires attention to a multitude of morphosyntactic, semantic, and pragmatic cues. The first three experiments tested whether 3- and 4-year-olds use (a) the immediate linguistic context, (b) their previous knowledge, and (c) the social context to determine whether an utterance with ambiguous scope (e.g., "They are afraid of mice", spoken while pointing to 2 birds) is generic. Four-year-olds were able to take advantage of all the cues provided, but 3-year-olds were sensitive only to the first two. In Experiment 4, we tested the relative strength of linguistic-context cues and previous-knowledge cues by putting them in conflict; in this task, 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, preferred to base their interpretations on the explicit noun phrase cues from the linguistic context. These studies indicate that, from early on, children can use contextual and semantic information to construe sentences as generic, thus taking advantage of the category knowledge conveyed in these sentences.     

时间顺序与时间距离对语言理解的影响:进一步的证据

探讨时间顺序和时间距离对语言理解的影响,包括2个实验.实验采用关系再认范式(relation-recognition paradigm)和句子-探测再认范式(sentence-probe-recognition paradigm).实验一探讨探讨在简单句条件下,时间顺序对不同频率事件理解的作用;实验二探讨在复句条件下时间顺序与时间距离对语言理解的影响.2个实验结果一致表明,在语言理解过程中,存在对将来取向(顺时序)的事件进行优先加工处理.时间距离对语言理解的影响取决于不同时距的事件能否整合成情景模型.     

语境与颜色诊断性对句子理解中物体隐含颜色知觉模拟的影响

具身认知理论的代表知觉符号系统认为知识表征具有知觉特点,并假设语言理解中对于所涉及概念及其隐含属性会即时进行知觉模拟。当前研究采用句图匹配范式,通过三个实验探讨句子理解中是否会对物体隐含颜色属性进行知觉模拟及其具体条件。实验1沿用经典范式验证语言理解中对物体隐含颜色存在知觉模拟过程。实验2通过变化句子前语境考察语境是否支持对于物体隐含颜色知觉模拟的影响。实验3进一步考察当颜色属性与其对应物体存在稳定关联时(即具有高颜色诊断性的物体),在不同语境作用下是否会引起知觉表征的变化。研究结果表明,语言理解中知觉模拟过程是灵活的,语境改变会引起读者所激活的物体颜色知觉表征发生变化,并且对于高颜色诊断物体,即使缺乏支持语境,读者仍然会对句中隐含的物体特定颜色进行知觉模拟。     

主语优先现象及其认知机制

主语优先是言语加工中的一种语序效应, 它具体表现为三个方面：论元歧义句的理解过程中, 首论元倾向于被解释为主语; 非歧义句的理解过程中, 首论元为宾语时的加工难于首论元为主语时的加工; 关系从句的理解过程中, 主语的提取比宾语的提取更容易。本文对主语优先现象主要进行了以下方面的论述：① 结合印欧语系和非印欧语系中的各种类型的语言, 详细分析了主语优先现象及其普遍性与特殊性; ② 主语优先现象的理论解释：基于工作记忆的理论、句法关联理论、突出性特征理论和基于频率的理论; ③ 与主语优先现象有关的脑电成分及其所体现的认知加工过程。最后, 结合已有的研究, 指出了主语优先现象未来的研究方向。     

Routes to Triviality

It is known that a number of inference principles can be used to trivialise the axioms of naïve comprehension – the axioms underlying the naïve theory of sets. In this paper we systematise and extend these known results, to provide a number of general classes of axioms responsible for trivialising naïve comprehension.     

6～8岁儿童三种时间副词理解能力及策略的实验研究

采用定量与定性相结合的研究方法,对6～8岁儿童理解时间副词的能力进行了初步探查,结果表明：(1)不同年龄儿童对时间副词的理解能力不同。6岁和7岁儿童初步形成了对现在时间副词和过去时间副词的理解能力,萌发了对将来时间副词的理解能力;8岁儿童已具有了对现在时间副词和过去时间副词的理解能力,基本上具有了对将来时间副词的理解能力。(2)儿童在理解时间副词时多种策略并存。随着年龄的增长,有效策略的生成能力有了明显的提高,8岁儿童已有90％以上的人次能够使用有效策略。     

What Eye Movements Tell About Identifying Compound Words in Reading and Top-Down Effects in Reading Long Texts

InthisarticleIsummarizetwolinesofeyemovementresearchthatwehaveconductedoverthepastseveralyearsinFinland.Onelineofre鄄searchdealswithhowcompetentadultreadersi鄄dentifycompoundwordsduringreading.Theotherlineofresearchdealswithhowaspecificreadinggoal(wecallitthereadingperspective)influencesthewayalongexpositorytextisreadandwhatisrememberedofthetext*.Inbothlinesofresearchwehaveappliedtheeyemovementtechniquebyregisteringreaders'eyemovementswhentheyreadsilentlysinglesentencesorlongertextsforcom鄄pr…     

语言理解中抑制机制的研究概况

抑制是语言理解中的一种重要的认知加工机制。该简要介绍了语言理解中抑制的概念、分类和有关抑制机制的建构一整合模型、结构建构框架等理论;同时,概括介绍了对语言内部无关或不适当信息干扰的抑制、对来自语言外部无关信息干扰的抑制以及跨通道语言理解过程中有关抑制的研究。     

The Comparative Effects of a Modified Self-Questioning Strategy and Story Mapping on the Reading Comprehension of Elementary Students with Learning Disabilities

An alternating treatments design was used to examine the effects of story mapping, a modified self-questioning strategy, and no intervention on literal and inferential reading comprehension of elementary students with learning disabilities. Immediate post-tests indicated that students attained significantly greater comprehension in the self-questioning and story mapping conditions over no intervention. Although students attained similarly high levels of overall comprehension when they used story mapping and self-questioning, students scored slightly higher on inferential comprehension questions in the self-questioning condition. Additionally, 4 out of the 5 students indicated a preference for the self-questioning strategy.     

Naïve Comprehension and Contracting Implications

In his paper [6], Greg Restall conjectured that a logic supports a naïve comprehension scheme if and only if it is robustly contraction free, that is, if and only if no contracting connective is definable in terms of the primitive connectives of the logic. In this paper, we present infinitely many counterexamples to Restall's conjecture, in the form of purely implicational logics which are robustly contraction free, but which trivialize naïve comprehension.