汉字模糊度、字频和语义启动在N400上的交互作用：N400的IA模型的证据

通过两个实验, 采用事件相关电位技术, 记录大学生被试在同一字判断任务中的脑电波形。两个实验涉及三个因素, 包括模糊度、字频和语义, 语义和字频为被试内设计, 以启动字-靶字(模糊)-探测字的呈现序列为一个测试(trial), 要求被试判断靶字和探测字是否是同一个字。两个实验除了靶字的模糊度不同外, 其他材料完全相同。结果发现, 实验1字频和语义启动间存在交互作用, 其中低频条件下无语义启动比语义启动的N400波幅更偏负, 高频条件则无这种差异; 实验2中只存在语义启动效应, 字频与语义启动间不存在交互作用; 综合两个实验的ERP结果, 模糊度、字频和语义启动三者间存在交互作用, 且高频而非低频条件下模糊度与语义间也有交互作用, 无启动条件下字频和模糊度间也存在交互作用。本研究因此支持N400的IA模型(交互激活模型), 不支持核证模型和词汇后加工理论。     

阈下说服的存在证据与争议

通过阈下刺激或者信息的呈现, 试图引导个体采用某种观点、态度或者行为的过程被称为阈下说服。已有的研究从不同视角考察了阈下说服的效果, 对阈下说服的存在与否有着较大的争议。出现争议的原因可能与觉知、阈下语义激活、当前动机以及习惯有关。最近的研究聚焦于探究当前动机在阈下说服研究中所起到的关键作用。未来应当继续尝试其它途径, 促进语义激活; 丰富动机种类, 探讨引发动机的方法; 关注机体变量, 探索新机制。     

词汇歧义消解的脑机制

词汇歧义是语言歧义的一种, 词汇歧义消解受到相对意义频率和语境的影响。半视野研究发现大脑两半球都能在词汇歧义消解过程中根据语境信息选择性地激活歧义词的恰当意义、抑制不恰当意义, 其中左半球的语义选择功能更强; 脑损伤研究发现大脑左、右半球损伤都会导致词汇歧义消解中语义选择障碍, 词汇歧义消解需要大脑两半球的联合作用; 神经成像研究进一步发现额叶与颞叶共同支持词汇歧义消解, 歧义词的恰当意义的选择是由额下回执行的, 语义整合加工是由颞叶负责的。     

成人在语境中的母语词汇意义学习

语境学习是成人获得词汇意义的主要方式, 大量研究者使用语境学习范式考察成人母语词汇意义学习的问题。已有研究将词汇意义学习分为两大阶段：习得词汇的对应概念阶段和将新词的意义整合到已有的语义网络中的阶段。基于词汇意义学习两大加工阶段中语境学习的相关研究, 梳理了词汇、语境、被试因素对成人词汇意义学习的影响, 指出未来研究需要进一步关注新概念学习、隐喻意义学习等问题。     

Temporary ambiguity in whispered word recognition: a semantic priming study

We examined whether listeners use acoustic correlates of voicing to resolve lexical ambiguities created by whispered speech in which a key feature, the voicing, is missing. Three associative priming experiments were conducted. The results showed a priming effect with whispered primes that included an intervocalic voiceless consonant (/petal/ “petal”) when the visual targets (FLEUR “flower”) were presented at the offset of the primes. A priming effect emerged with whispered primes that included a voiced intervocalic consonant (/pedal/ “pedal”) when the delay between the offset of the primes and the visual targets (VELO “bike”) was increased by 50 ms. In none of the experiments, the voiced primes (/pedal/) facilitated the processing of the targets (FLEUR) associated with the voiceless primes (/petal/). Our results suggest that the acoustic correlates of voicing are used by listeners to recover the intended words. Nonetheless, the retrieval of the voiced feature is not immediate during whispered word recognition.     

External details revisited – A new taxonomy for coding ‘non-episodic’ content during autobiographical memory retrieval

Autobiographical memory (ABM) is typically held to comprise episodic and semantic elements, with the vast majority of studies to date focusing on profiles of episodic details in health and disease. In this context, ‘non-episodic’ elements are often considered to reflect semantic processing or are discounted from analyses entirely. Mounting evidence suggests that rather than reflecting one unitary entity, semantic autobiographical information may contain discrete subcomponents, which vary in their relative degree of semantic or episodic content. This study aimed to (1) review the existing literature to formally characterize the variability in analysis of ‘non-episodic’ content (i.e., external details) on the Autobiographical Interview and (2) use these findings to create a theoretically grounded framework for coding external details. Our review exposed discrepancies in the reporting and interpretation of external details across studies, reinforcing the need for a new, consistent approach. We validated our new external details scoring protocol (the ‘NExt’ taxonomy) in patients with Alzheimer's disease (n = 18) and semantic dementia (n = 13), and 20 healthy older Control participants and compared profiles of the NExt subcategories across groups and time periods. Our results revealed increased sensitivity of the NExt taxonomy in discriminating between ABM profiles of patient groups, when compared to traditionally used internal and external detail metrics. Further, remote and recent autobiographical memories displayed distinct compositions of the NExt detail types. This study is the first to provide a fine-grained and comprehensive taxonomy to parse external details into intuitive subcategories and to validate this protocol in neurodegenerative disorders.     

No grammatical gender effect on affective ratings: evidence from Italian and German languages

In this study, we tested the linguistic relativity hypothesis by studying the effect of grammatical gender (feminine vs. masculine) on affective judgments of conceptual representation in Italian and German. In particular, we examined the within- and cross-language grammatical gender effect and its interaction with participants’ demographic characteristics (such as, the raters’ age and sex) on semantic differential scales (affective ratings of valence, arousal and dominance) in Italian and German speakers. We selected the stimuli and the relative affective measures from Italian and German adaptations of the ANEW (Affective Norms for English Words). Bayesian and frequentist analyses yielded evidence for the absence of within- and cross-languages effects of grammatical gender and sex- and age-dependent interactions. These results suggest that grammatical gender does not affect judgments of affective features of semantic representation in Italian and German speakers, since an overt coding of word grammar is not required. Although further research is recommended to refine the impact of the grammatical gender on properties of semantic representation, these results have implications for any strong view of the linguistic relativity hypothesis.     

具身模拟在汉语肢体动作动词理解中的作用

通过3个实验, 考察具身模拟在汉语肢体动作动词理解中的作用。实验1考察在整字启动下具身模拟对运动通道中箭头方向判断的影响, 发现理解肢体动作动词在运动通道中存在着动作-汉字相容效应, 汉字的具身方向与箭头方向一致促进被试对箭头方向的判断。实验2考察在整字启动下具身经验对视觉通道中字母位置判断的影响, 发现理解肢体动作动词在视觉通道中存在着动作-汉字相容效应, 汉字的具身方位与字母方位一致促进对字母方位的识别。实验3采用义符启动范式考察义符与整字的具身模拟, 发现理解汉语肢体动作动词不仅在整字层次上存在着具身模拟, 在部件层次上也存在着具身模拟。义符在汉字加工中期被激活了, 并且持续到加工晚期。整个研究表明, 汉语肢体动作动词理解是一个跨通道的具身模拟过程, 具身模拟在汉语肢体动作动词的理解中起着非常重要的作用。     

不同性质的汉语高熟悉度隐喻意义加工过程——来自ERP研究的证据

采用ERP技术考察不同性质隐喻加工的时间进程与神经机制。以词对方式呈现词源性隐喻、引发性隐喻、一般字面义,被试进行语义相关判断任务。结果发现:从引发性隐喻、一般字面义到词源性隐喻,N400平均波幅呈阶梯状递减,引发性隐喻和词源性隐喻的P600平均波幅大于一般字面义。对于不同类型词对诱发的N400,大脑左半球没有显著差异,但右半球上引发性隐喻显著大于词源性隐喻和字面义词对。并且右半球P600平均波幅更大,但三种词对间没有显著差异。结果表明:(1)日常熟悉隐喻的理解更符合平行假说但需要更多的认知资源;(2)右半球是否参与以及参与程度与隐喻性质和加工阶段有关。