汉语口语词汇产生中的多重音韵激活：单词翻译任务的ERP研究

口语词汇产生过程中, 非目标词是否会产生音韵激活是独立两阶段模型和交互激活模型的争论焦点之一。研究运用事件相关电位技术, 考察了被试在翻译命名任务中是否受到背景图片音韵或语义干扰词的影响。行为反应时中未发现显著的音韵效应, 而语义效应显著, 表明非目标词不会产生音韵激活。事件相关电位的结果显示在目标单词呈现后的400~600 ms时间窗口中出现了显著的语义效应, 在600~700 ms时间窗口内出现了边缘显著的语义效应和音韵效应, 均表现为相关条件比无关条件波幅更正。上述结果表明在将英语翻译成汉语的过程中, 尽管在脑电上呈现出可能存在微弱的多重音韵激活, 但行为结果并不会显示出非目标项的音韵激活。研究结果支持了汉语口语词汇产生遵循独立两阶段模式的观点。

The multiple phonological activation in Chinese spoken word production:An ERP study in a word translation task

A debatable issue between serial discrete models and interactive models is whether non-target lemmas activate their phonological words in spoken word production.Serial discrete models assume that only target lemma activates its corresponding phonological node to articulation,whereas interactive models assume that the semantic and phonological nodes linked to multiple candidates are co-activated during the retrieval of target word.Multiple phonological activation has been supported by evidences from alphabetic languages,but it remains unknown whether this finding can be generalized to non-alphabetic languages.Therefore,the current study aimed to investigate whether the not-to-be named pictures activate their phonological nodes in Chinese spoken word production.Using electrophysiological measures,the present study employed a word translation task in native Chinese speakers with a high level of English proficiency.Thirty-two participants(13 males,average 22.94 years)were presented with an English probe word and a context picture(semantically related or unrelated,phonologically related or unrelated to target word)simultaneously.Eighty-six English probe words from CELEX database and forty-three black and white line pictures from a standardized picture database in Chinese were chosen as stimuli.Participants were asked to translate English probe words into Chinese as accurately and quickly as possible while ignoring context pictures presented simultaneously.Behavioral results showed a typical semantic facilitation effect,with faster translation latencies in the semantically related condition than in the semantically unrelated condition.More importantly,phonological overlap,which generally elicits priming in Indo-European languages,resulted in a null finding for Chinese production.Electrophysiological results revealed that semantic relatedness induced significant effects of ERPs after stimuli presentation:a widely distributed positivity in the 400-to 600-ms interval,while marginally significant effects were observed for phonological relatedness in the time interval of 600~700 ms in the right middle region.Furthermore,a negative correlation between the difference of translation latencies(semantically related minus semantically unrelated)and the difference of mean amplitudes(semantically related minus semantically unrelated)approached significance in the 400~600 ms time window in the middle posterior region, suggesting that more positive mean amplitudes were associated with shorter translation latencies.Although speakers present a weak but reliable neural activation, we suggest that phonological overlapbetween context pictures and target words had no impact on the translation processing in behavioral. That is, thenon-target lemma did not activate their phonological node, and multiple phonological activation was absent inChinese spoken production. Meanwhile, the semantic information of context pictures was indeed activated, andaccording to the temporal course of word translation, the time window of 400~600 ms was estimated forconceptual preparation when Chinese-English bilinguals completed a word translation task, although thisactivation was not transmitted from semantic level to phonological level. Overall, the present findings support aserial discrete model rather than an interactive model in Chinese spoken word production.