语言学论文哪里有？在汉语句子的理解和产生过程中，大脑激活了对象隐含形状信息的知觉符号，验证了PSS理论；心理模拟不仅存在于句子理解过程中，也存在于句子生成过程中。此外，句子产生中的心理模拟与心理意象不同，它们并不共享所有的语言处理过程；心理成像包括更多的认知努力，以战略性地处理任务；然而，语言产生过程中的心理模拟是一种无意识的普遍机制，显示出较少的个体差异。
1 Introduction
1.2 Research Objectives and Questions
To date, embodied cognition theory is supported by a number of compellingstudies that show that the same brain regions are activated during languagecomprehension as they are during movement or perception [16]. By employingsentence-picture verification paradigm, a number of studies have shown thatperceptual information of shape is activated through mental simulation [7].
However, most of the current studies on mental simulation are conducted fromthe perspective of English and other alphabetic languages, and the mother tongue of the participants in the study is mainly limited to English. Mental simulation remainsnot very clear in comprehension of Chinese with unique character structures whichmay lead to different neural activities beyond the universality for alphabetic languages.Meanwhile, there are few studies focusing on the process of mental simulation duringproducing sentences and language production may reflect different mechanisms insentence processing.
On the basis of the researches about embodied view of language processingmentioned above, the present study is expected to fill in the gap of previous studies,trying to explore the mental simulation with Chinese sentences and word-sets bycarrying out two behavioral experiments with two additional tests which examined therelationship between mental imagery and mental simulation. The objective of thisstudy is to describe and examine the hypothesis that the mental simulation exists bothin the process of language comprehension and language production.
3. Methodology
3.1 Experiment 1
The experiment 1 was conducted to examine whether native Chinese speakersrepresent the implied shape information when comprehending Chinese sentences.Meanwhile, whether there is a correlation between mental imagery and possiblematch or mismatch effects would also be studied.
3.1.1 Participants
All 55 healthy, right-handed Chinese native speakers with normal orcorrected-to-normal vision (32 males and 23 females; mean age = 23.58 years) wererecruited to participate in the experiment by advertising in social media. Allparticipants volunteered and were rewarded with RMB 10 for their participation.
3.1.2 Materials
A total of 72 black-and-white drawings were used as the experiment stimuli.Most of the experimental materials were from the experiment in Zwaan et al. [7],among which a small number of photos were adapted based on the habits of Chinesepeople and processed by Photoshop to unify the image size and adjust the color. Thematch relationship of experimental images is shown in Tab. 3.1 as examples.
5. Discussion
5.1 Mental Simulation in Comprehending Chinese Sentences
In experiment 1, we speculated that responses in the picture judgement taskwere faster when the image in the sentences matched that of the pictured object. Forinstance, when participants saw an image of an eagle with wings spreading aftercomprehending the sentence “There is an eagle in the sky”. The object’s shape in thepicture was in accordance with the implied shape by the sentence and the matchadvantage would be attained. The amodal theory of language comprehensionsuggested that an object such as the “eagle” might be represented as a feature list or anode in a propositional network. However, it would leave out the shape information ofthe eagle, thereby failing to explain the match advantage clearly.
Contrary to the amodal theory, the embodied cognition theory offers adifferent account for this phenomenon. PSS proposes that a concept is acquiredthrough the representation of sensorimotor experience [16]. Language processingincludes perception simulation and activation of sensorimotor representation. Duringthe process of language comprehension, a comprehensive situation model is built andtriggers the same (or similar) sensorimotor activation as the described event is experienced [5]. And the access to implied shape information involves the activation ofmodality-specific visual process.
5.2 Mental Simulation in Producing Chinese Sentences
In experiment 2, where participants were asked to produce the sentence withthe targeted words and to judge whether the object had been mentioned in the wordset according to the picture. The result supported the findings that responses in thepicture judgement task were faster when the image in the produced sentences matchedthat of the pictured object with an advantage of 87.90 ms. It indicated that duringsentence production phase, participants activated the embodied representations ofobject’s shape information automatically. Reading or listening to isolated words canactivate perceptual symbols, and experiment of Zwaan and Yaxley examined whetherperceptual information, especially the object’s shape, is activated during semanticprocessing [64]. The participants were asked to determine whether there was a semanticconnection between the target word and the prime word that appeared briefly on thescreen. When the two were semantically unrelated but referred to objects with thesame shape (e.g., Pie and Clock), the participants responded slower than when theprime word was unrelated to the target word, demonstrating that the shapeinformation was activated in a semantically relevant judgment task. In experiment 2,it would be possible for them to judge the picture with the word set alone. To avoidthe fact that the participants only comprehended the words to make the judgement, in the experimental procedure, associated words were added and participants were askedto produce sentences with the selected words. In that case, in the word presentationphase, participants could not make the sentences directly with all of the words.Instead, they had to wait until the red line appeared under the related word, whichwould ensure the sentences correspond to the requirement. The limitation of the timerequired to make the sentence was to reduce the possibility for participants to makecomplex sentences or use unrelated words during sentence production. Meanwhile, indata processing, by screening the sentences produced with the incorrect related word,the data almost suggested that participant tried to produce the sentence rather thanmerely comprehend the words to make the final judgement, thereby validating theeffect of mental simulation during sentence production.
6. Conclusions
6.1 Major Findings
This study employed the sentence-picture paradigm to investigate whetherperceptual symbols are activated during the process of Chinese sentencecomprehension and production. Meanwhile, the relationship between mental imageryand mental simulation was also testified. The major findings based on the aboveresults and discussion can be summarized as follows.
Firstly, the brain activates the perceptual symbols of the object’s shapeinformation during the comprehension of Chinese sentences. Chinese sentences cantrigger the perceptual representations in the brain. Language, body and environmentare interacted in the comprehension process. In this study, participants were asked tocomprehend the Chinese sentences and then perform the recognition task of picture.The significant match advantage was found, suggesting that participants respondedfaster to the match condition than mismatch condition. The match advantagedemonstrated that the perceptual symbols of the object’s shape are activated andperceptual symbols function unconsciously. Therefore, Chinese sentencecomprehension is embodied rather than amodal, providing evidence for mentalsimulation during the comprehension process.
Secondly, perceptual symbols of the object’s shape are activated during theproduction of Chinese sentences. In the process of sentence production, every imagein these sentences is not necessarily activated by conscious imagery. Instead, imagescan exist as the form of perceptual symbols which are mentally simulated through theproduction phase. The results of experiment 2 suggested that participants respondedfaster to the picture when the produced sentence was consistent with the picture. Onthe condition that the interval between the sentence production and the picturejudgement phase was short, participants pressed the key as soon as they produced thecorrect sentence. There were no mandatory requirements for participants to visualizethe images in the produced sentence. Therefore, the match advantage indicated thatthe mental simulation occurred during sentence production. In addition, the reactiontime in the picture recognition phase of experiment 2 was longer on average than thatin experiment 1 where participants performed comprehension task, which indicatedthat responses were faster after comprehension task than production phase. Accordingto three phases of sentence production (message formulation, grammatical encoding,phonological encoding) in Levelt’s sentence production model, the reasons thatcaused difference of reaction time in these two conditions may be that perceptualsymbols have been mentally simulated after the second phase including the messageformulation and grammatical encoding. Therefore, this study proved that perceptualsymbols of object’s shape are mentally simulated before the third phase of languageproduction.
reference(omitted)
