汉语口语韵律的作用及其神经机制

汉语是一种声调语言, 在口语韵律表达中存在独特的特点。本项目利用汉语不同于非声调语言的特点, 探讨已有研究中尚未澄清的问题, 即汉语声调在早期自动加工中对语义激活的作用, 以及在不同认知阶段中, 汉语声调和语调加工的神经机制。这些问题是当前的研究热点, 但仍存在着各种分歧和激烈的争论。本项目拟采用ERP方法, 结合LORETA源定位技术, 通过不同的实验范式考察以下内容：(1)在早期自动加工过程中, 汉语声调对词汇语义激活的作用; (2)在早期阶段, 汉语声调和语调加工的大脑激活模式; (3)在晚期阶段, 汉语声调和语调加工的大脑激活模式。对这些问题的考察将有助于澄清当前的激烈争论, 拓展以往基于非声调语言研究建立的口语加工理论的适用范围, 为完善言语认知加工的理论模型提供新的实验证据。

Roles of Lexical Tone and Neural Mechanisms Underlying Processing of Mandarin Speech Melody

Chinese is a tone language, in which both lexical tone and intonation is signaled by pitch variation and associated with spectral processing. In the present project, Mandarin Chinese is exploited to address the issues remained unclear in the cognitive processing of speech melody. We aim at investigating the role of Mandarin Chinese lexical tone on the activation of lexical meanings in an early pre-attentive stage and the neural mechanisms underlying processing of Mandarin speech melody in different cognitive stages. Here we combine event-related potential recordings and source estimation (LORETA) to examine the issues as following: (1) the role of Mandarin lexical on the activation of lexical meanings in the early automatically processing indexed by the mismatch negativity (MMN); (2) the dynamic patterns of brain responses to lexical tone and intonation at the early stage of speech perception; (3) the dynamic patterns of brain responses to lexical tone and intonation at the late stage of speech perception. Addressing those issues would help to test the current hot arguments concerning the processing of speech melody, and extend the previous theoretical models of speech perception that built on the studies of non-tone languages.