影响动作图片命名的因素

图片是研究词汇习得与加工的重要材料, 而名词和动词是最主要的两类实词。然而, 目前较少有研究考察汉语中的动词加工过程, 也没有标准化的动词图片库。本研究通过成人图片命名和评定任务, 获得了265张动词图片的中文名称、命名反应时, 以及H值、命名一致性、熟悉性、视觉复杂性、表象一致性和口语习得年龄等指标, 同时也探索了影响动作图片命名反应时的因素。逐步回归分析结果发现, H值、熟悉性和视觉复杂性这三个变量可解释动词图片命名反应时72.4%的变异。此外, 本研究根据图片命名反应时将动词图片加工难度分成了五个等级。研究发现, 与名词图片相比, 动词图片的视觉复杂性更高、命名一致性更低、命名反应时更长。本研究获得的各项心理语言学指标有望为后续关于动词加工的实验研究提供重要的参考资料。

Predictors of Action Picture Naming in Mandarin Chinese

Nouns and verbs are two main categories of content words, and they are learned early by children. It remains in hot debate regarding whether Mandarin Chinese is a verb-friendly language for children. However, few studies examined verb processing in Mandarin, and there were no standard experimental materials that are available for researchers. Therefore, it is unclear what factors may influence action picture naming in Mandarin and whether it is similar to the rules in object picture naming. Thirty-six adults participated in picture naming and 112 adults participated in rating tasks. All participants were native speakers of Mandarin Chinese. The materials were 275 pictures from the IPNP website (see http://crl.ucsd.edu/experiments/ipnp/) (Szekely et al., 2004), of which 10 pictures were deleted because Chinese adults could not name them correctly. Chinese verb names, naming latency, name agreement, H value, familiarity, visual complexity, image agreement, and oral age of acquisition (AoA) were obtained for the 265 action pictures. Results from stepwise regression analysis showed that H value familiarity and visual complexity explained 72.4% of the variances in picture naming latency, whereas other variables such as word frequency and AoA were excluded from the final model. Moreover, the pictures were categorized into five levels of difficulty based on the naming latency. A comparison of the present study to previous studies that examined object picture naming in Mandarin showed that action picture naming (with a mean latency of 1617 ms) was more difficult than object picture naming (with a mean latency of 1324 ms or 1044 ms, Liu, Hao, Li, & Shu, 2011; Zhang & Yang, 2003). In addition, name agreement of action pictures was lower than that of object pictures, and visual complexity of action pictures was higher than that of object pictures. These results indicated that action picture naming was difficult for adult participants. One possibility is that it might be particularly difficult for Mandarin speakers to extract meaning out of the static action pictures and verbalize them. More investigations are needed to explore the mechanisms of verb processing in Mandarin Chinese, and the measures obtained from the present study can provide valuable tools for future researchers to examine verb processing in Mandarin.