句法启动研究的范式及其在语言理解中的争论

重复是一种非常重要的行为现象。在心理语言学领域, 句法启动是重复的一种非常独特的表现形式, 有助于推进研究者更好地理解语言是如何表征和加工的。在系统梳理文献的基础上, 归纳了句法启动研究使用的句子类型, 详细阐述了句法启动研究的实验范式, 即句子复述－图片描述范式、句子补全范式、句子回忆范式和视觉情境眼动范式, 指出了不同范式的优缺点; 系统探讨了语言理解中句法启动研究的核心争论, 即句子理解中的启动是策略的, 语义的, 还是句法的; 如果存在句法启动效应, 那么该效应是词汇驱动的, 还是词汇独立的。最后, 对语言理解中句法启动效应在未来研究中需解决的问题进行了展望。     

知觉符号理论及其研究范式

知觉符号理论是第二代认知科学的核心理论之一, 研究者采用多种实验范式、在各个领域对该理论进行了探讨。分析以往的研究发现, 大量的研究主要探讨语言表征、概念获得、具身情绪、推理过程、社会认知和知觉符号发展等科学问题。本文对此领域的发展进行了简要梳理, 特别是以实验范式发展为主线详细介绍了知觉符号理论的发展, 并在此基础上提出了多元表征的思考。最后, 对知觉符号理论的发展提出了展望。     

视觉工作记忆巩固机制：固化抑或衰退

视觉工作记忆巩固机制是工作记忆研究领域的前沿科学问题。Vogel等(2006)采用掩蔽的变化检测范式揭示视觉工作记忆巩固过程及其规律, 指出巩固是从容易受到干扰的感觉表征转化为稳定的工作记忆的表征的过程。本文系统梳理了视觉工作记忆巩固的实验范式, 以及相关影响因素的研究成果, 分析了视觉工作记忆巩固现象所反映的内部机制, 指出Vogel等所揭示的视觉工作记忆巩固现象反映的可能并非记忆项目的固化过程, 而是掩蔽刺激对记忆项目的干扰作用的衰退过程。     

Attentional biases in social anxiety: an investigation using the inattentional blindness paradigm

One line of research has examined attentional bias as a potential maintenance factor in social anxiety using cognitive experiment paradigms. The present study sought to examine the utility of the inattentional blindness (IB) paradigm for assessing attentional bias in social anxiety. Unlike other existing paradigms such as the emotional Stroop or dot-probe tasks, the IB paradigm has the advantage of eliminating the individual's expectation and intention to search for social cues, which would reduce strategic or effortful responses. Two independent experiments were conducted using college students scoring high or low on the Fear of Negative Evaluation Scale. In both Experiments 1 and 2, participants were randomized to one of three IB experiment conditions, in which a positive face, a negative face, or a neutral item was unexpectedly presented, in the presence/absence of a bogus-speech threat. The overall pattern of our data suggests the presence of hypervigilant attentional processing in social anxiety. The IB paradigm appears to be a useful addition to existing experiment paradigms for investigating attentional bias in social anxiety and perhaps other psychopathology.     

Continual training of attentional bias in social anxiety

Using the dot-probe paradigm, it has been shown that high social anxiety is associated with an attentional bias toward negative information. In the present study, individuals with high social anxiety were divided into two groups randomly. One group was the attentional bias training group (Group T), and the other was the control group (Group C). For Group T, 7 days' continuous training of attentional bias was conducted using the dot-probe paradigm to make socially anxious individuals focus more on positive face pictures. The results showed that the training was effective in changing attentional bias in Group T. Scores of the Social Interaction Anxiety Scale (SIAS) in Group T were reduced compared to Group C, while the scores of Social Phobia Scale (SPS) and scores of Negative Evaluation Scale (FNE) showed no difference between the two groups, which suggested a limited reduction of social anxiety.     

Putting lexical constraints in context into the visual-world paradigm

Prior eye-tracking studies of spoken sentence comprehension have found that the presence of two potential referents, e.g., two frogs, can guide listeners toward a Modifier interpretation of Put the frog on the napkin… despite strong lexical biases associated with Put that support a Goal interpretation of the temporary ambiguity (Tanenhaus, M. K., Spivey-Knowlton, M. J., Eberhard, K. M. & Sedivy, J. C. (1995). Integration of visual and linguistic information in spoken language comprehension. Science, 268, 1632–1634; Trueswell, J. C., Sekerina, I., Hill, N. M. & Logrip, M. L. (1999). The kindergarten-path effect: Studying on-line sentence processing in young children. Cognition, 73, 89–134). This pattern is not expected under constraint-based parsing theories: cue conflict between the lexical evidence (which supports the Goal analysis) and the visuo-contextual evidence (which supports the Modifier analysis) should result in uncertainty about the intended analysis and partial consideration of the Goal analysis. We reexamined these put studies (Experiment 1) by introducing a response time-constraint and a spatial contrast between competing referents (a frog on a napkin vs. a frog in a bowl). If listeners immediately interpret on the… as the start of a restrictive modifier, then their eye movements should rapidly converge on the intended referent (the frog on something). However, listeners showed this pattern only when the phrase was unambiguously a Modifier (Put the frog that’s on the…). Syntactically ambiguous trials resulted in transient consideration of the Competitor animal (the frog in something). A reading study was also run on the same individuals (Experiment 2) and performance was compared between the two experiments. Those individuals who relied heavily on lexical biases to resolve a complement ambiguity in reading (The man heard/realized the story had been…) showed increased sensitivity to both lexical and contextual constraints in the put-task; i.e., increased consideration of the Goal analysis in 1-Referent Scenes, but also adeptness at using spatial constraints of prepositions (in vs. on) to restrict referential alternatives in 2-Referent Scenes. These findings cross-validate visual world and reading methods and support multiple-constraint theories of sentence processing in which individuals differ in their sensitivity to lexical contingencies.     

Evidence for serial coercion: a time course analysis using the visual-world paradigm

Metonymic verbs like start or enjoy often occur with artifact-denoting complements (e.g., The artist started the picture) although semantically they require event-denoting complements (e.g., The artist started painting the picture). In case of artifact-denoting objects, the complement is assumed to be type shifted (or coerced) into an event to conform to the verb's semantic restrictions. Psycholinguistic research has provided evidence for this kind of enriched composition: readers experience processing difficulty when faced with metonymic constructions compared to non-metonymic controls. However, slower reading times for metonymic constructions could also be due to competition between multiple interpretations that are being entertained in parallel whenever a metonymic verb is encountered. Using the visual-world paradigm, we devised an experiment which enabled us to determine the time course of metonymic interpretation in relation to non-metonymic controls. The experiment provided evidence in favor of a non-competitive, serial coercion process.     

Individual differences in the rejection-aggression link in the hot sauce paradigm: The case of rejection sensitivity

Prior research shows that social rejection elicits aggression. In this study, we investigated whether this effect is moderated by individual differences in Rejection sensitivity (RS)—a processing disposition to anxiously expect, readily perceive and overreact to rejection. Participants (N = 129) took part in a purported web-based social interaction in which they were either rejected or not by a potential partner. Subsequently, they were given the opportunity to allocate hot sauce to the perpetrator, knowing that he/she disliked spicy food. Amount of hot sauce was used as a behavioral index of aggression. Participants in the rejection condition allocated more hot sauce to the perpetrator than those in the control condition. However, RS moderated this effect such that rejection elicited aggression in high but not in low RS people. These results held after controlling for trait neuroticism. Implications of these findings for understanding how and why rejection elicits aggression are discussed.     

Influence of suggestion in the DRM paradigm: what state of consciousness is associated with false memory?

We assessed the effect of suggestion on the Deese–Roediger–McDermott paradigm and associated it with the Remember–Know–Guess paradigm. Undergraduate students were given either lists of semantically related words or texts containing these words. After the recall task, if participants did not produce the critical lure, the experimenter suggested that the word had been present, using either a question (moderate suggestion) or an assertion (strong suggestion); these conditions were compared to a condition without suggestion. Afterwards, participants took a recognition test. The results showed that strong suggestions lead to more false recognitions than other conditions and the state of consciousness associated with false recognitions tends to be a feeling of knowing rather than remembering, regardless of the verbal version (list or text). Therefore moderate suggestions did not lead to more false recognitions compare to no suggestion. We discuss the impact of suggestion on consciousness associated with false memories.     

儿童外显视空间注意转移

采用提示范式探讨了三、六年级儿童的外显视空间注意转移。实验结果表明：内源性提示下儿童表现出显著的提示效度效应,其效度效应量在年龄组间没有显著差异;较短SOAs的外源性提示下,儿童表现出显著的提示效度效应;较长SOAs的外源性提示下儿童没有表现出返回抑制效应。用注意的过滤器理论和对象文件模型讨论了本研究的结果