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汉语复句阅读中连词关系对理解监控的调节机制*
The Moderating Mechanism of Conjunctions on Comprehension Monitoring in Chinese Complex Sentence Reading
结合错误检测范式和脑电技术, 研究探讨了连词关系在汉语复句阅读理解监控中的作用机制。采用 2×2被试内实验设计，自变量分别为世界知识（一致 vs. 不一致）和连词关系（因果vs. 转折）。结果发现，在汉语复句阅读早期（300~500 ms），因果条件相比转折条件引发波幅更大的 N400成分，世界知识效应此阶段不显著。而在汉语复句阅读晚期（500~800 ms），连词关系和世界知识的交互作用显著，具体表现为转折条件下世界知识不一致引发更大的P600成分，而因果条件下无此效应。此结果表明，汉语复句阅读中连词关系优先发挥作用，而理解监控过程发生在晚期且受到连词关系调节。可见，汉语复句阅读中连词关系发挥着至关重要的作用。
Comprehension monitoring is the process by which a reader evaluates the state of their understanding of information, and it is considered an essential element in the ways in which individuals’ reading comprehension can be influenced. However, the processes and mechanisms underlying this skill are not well understood. Previous research on reading comprehension monitoring has mostly focused on simple sentence level, with less exploration of complex sentence level. In Chinese complex sentences, conjunctions play a particularly important role in indicating the relationships between sentence components. Therefore, it is necessary to explore the effect of conjunctions in the monitoring process of understanding Chinese complex sentences. This study aims to investigate the mechanisms by which conjunctions influence comprehension monitoring when reading Chinese complex sentences.
Using event-related brain potentials (ERPs) with an error detection paradigm, a 2 (world knowledge: consistent vs. inconsistent) × 2 (conjunction relation: causal vs. transitional) within experimental design was adopted. Four conditions were formed by crossing conjunction relation and world knowledge: because-congruent sentences, because-incongruent sentences, transitional-congruent sentences, transitional-incongruent sentences. Mean sentence rationality, predictability, word frequency, and number of strokes were balanced across these four types of sentences. ERP data were recorded with a 64-channel Ag-Agcl Neuroscan 4.5 (Neuroscan Inc., Sterling, VA) with a common-vertex online reference, which was transformed offline to the mean of the activity at the two mastoids. E-Prime 2.0 software was used for programming. Trials began with a fixation cross that remained on the screen for 1000 ms. Then, the sentence stimuli were presented word by word. Each word was presented for 400 ms, with an inter word interval of 400 ms. For the filler sentences, the participants were asked to answer a true/false comprehension question. Half of the questions required a “true” response, and half required a “false” response. The formal experiment was divided into four blocks of 60 sentences each, with short breaks between blocks. This ERP experiment lasted approximately 1.5 hours.
The ERP results revealed that causal sentences elicited a larger N400 during 300~500ms time window and a smaller P600 around 500-800ms time window as compared to the transitional sentence. By contrast, the world knowledge inconsistency elicited a larger P600 during the time window of 500~800ms than did the world knowledge consistency. More importantly, significant interaction between world knowledge and conjunction relation was also found for P600. Further analysis showed that when the sentence was transitional, the sentences with the world knowledge inconsistency elicited the larger P600 than the world knowledge consistency. However, the world knowledge effect was not found in causal sentences.
In conclusion, these results suggest that both world knowledge and conjunction relation could play a role in Chinese complex sentence reading. But the conjunction relation was found to be earlier as it was firstly reflected by N400 effects which a component was proved to indicate the semantic processing. In addition, the comprehension monitoring process during Chinese complex sentence reading is modulated by conjunction information, as reflected by the P600 component. This modulation is specifically manifested by the inconsistency of world knowledge in transitional sentences triggering a larger P600, whereas no such effect is observed in causal sentences. In other words, conjunctions relation plays a priority role in Chinese compound sentence reading, whereas comprehension monitoring occurs at a late stage and is regulated by conjunctions. It can be seen that conjunctions play a crucial role in reading Chinese complex sentences.
The innovations of this study include two aspects. On the one hand, the study found that comprehension monitoring is associated with a late positive-going neural response-the P600, and the process is modulated by the conjunction relation. On the other hand, the study provides evidence for the neural substrates for the comprehension monitoring process of Chinese complex reading. In future studies, it will be important to determine how comprehension monitoring mechanisms are involved in the detection and resolution of more global discourse errors.
汉语复句 / 理解监控 / 连词关系 / 世界知识 / ERPs
Chinese complex sentence / comprehension monitoring / world knowledge / conjunction relation / ERPs
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In order to test recent claims about the structure of verbal working memory, two ERP experiments with Dutch speaking participants were carried out. We compared the ERP effects of syntactic and semantic mid-sentence anomalies in subject and object relative sentences. In Experiment 1, the participants made acceptability judgments, while in Experiment 2 they read for comprehension. Syntactic anomalies concerned subject-verb disagreement, while semantic anomalies were related to implausible events (e.g., *The cat that fled from the mice ran through the room). Semantic anomalies did not elicit an N400 effect. The semantic as well as syntactic anomalies elicited P600 effects, with similar centro-parietal scalp distributions. For both kinds of anomaly, the P600 effects were modulated by syntactic complexity: they were either relatively small (Experiment 1) or absent (Experiment 2) in object relative sentences. Taken together, our results suggest that: (a) verbal working memory is a limited capacity system; (b) it is not subdivided into an interpretative and a post-interpretative component (); (c) the P600 can reflect the presence of a semantic bias in syntactically unambiguous sentences; (d) the P600 is related to language monitoring: its function is to check upon the veridicality of an unexpected (linguistic) event; (e) if such a check is made, there is no integration of the event and hence no N400 effect.
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In 1980, the N400 event-related potential was described in association with semantic anomalies within sentences. When, in 1992, a second waveform, the P600, was reported in association with syntactic anomalies and ambiguities, the story appeared to be complete: the brain respected a distinction between semantic and syntactic representation and processes. Subsequent studies showed that the P600 to syntactic anomalies and ambiguities was modulated by lexical and discourse factors. Most surprisingly, more than a decade after the P600 was first described, a series of studies reported that semantic verb-argument violations, in the absence of any violations or ambiguities of syntax can evoke robust P600 effects and no N400 effects. These observations have raised fundamental questions about the relationship between semantic and syntactic processing in the brain. This paper provides a comprehensive review of the recent studies that have demonstrated P600s to semantic violations in light of several proposed triggers: semantic-thematic attraction, semantic associative relationships, animacy and semantic-thematic violations, plausibility, task, and context. I then discuss these findings in relation to a unifying theory that attempts to bring some of these factors together and to link the P600 produced by semantic verb-argument violations with the P600 evoked by unambiguous syntactic violations and syntactic ambiguities. I suggest that normal language comprehension proceeds along at least two competing neural processing streams: a semantic memory-based mechanism, and a combinatorial mechanism (or mechanisms) that assigns structure to a sentence primarily on the basis of morphosyntactic rules, but also on the basis of certain semantic-thematic constraints. I suggest that conflicts between the different representations that are output by these distinct but interactive streams lead to a continued combinatorial analysis that is reflected by the P600 effect. I discuss some of the implications of this non-syntactocentric, dynamic model of language processing for understanding individual differences, language processing disorders and the neuroanatomical circuitry engaged during language comprehension. Finally, I suggest that that these two processing streams may generalize beyond the language system to real-world visual event comprehension.
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It has been proposed that hierarchical prediction is a fundamental computational principle underlying neurocognitive processing. Here, we ask whether the brain engages distinct neurocognitive mechanisms in response to inputs that fulfill versus violate strong predictions at different levels of representation during language comprehension. Participants read three-sentence scenarios in which the third sentence constrained for a broad event structure, for example, {}. contexts additionally constrained for a specific event/lexical item, for example, a two-sentence context about a beach, lifeguards, and sharks constrained for the event, {}, and the specific lexical item. contexts did not constrain for any specific event/lexical item. We measured ERPs on critical nouns that fulfilled and/or violated each of these constraints. We found clear, dissociable effects to fulfilled semantic predictions (a reduced N400), to event/lexical prediction violations (an increased), and to event structure/animacy prediction violations (an increased). We argue that the late frontal positivity reflects a large change in activity associated with successfully updating the comprehender's current situation model with new unpredicted information. We suggest that the late posterior positivity/P600 is triggered when the comprehender detects a conflict between the input and her model of the communicator and communicative environment. This leads to an initial failure to incorporate the unpredicted input into the situation model, which may be followed by second-pass attempts to make sense of the discourse through reanalysis, repair, or reinterpretation. Together, these findings provide strong evidence that confirmed and violated predictions at different levels of representation manifest as distinct spatiotemporal neural signatures.
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The aim of this study was to determine whether or not the brain distinguishes between two types of conceptual relationships between noun-phrases (NPs) and verbs during online processing of simple, unambiguous English sentences. A total of 15 participants read and made plausibility judgments on sentences that were presented word-by-word. Event-related potentials elicited by critical verbs were measured. In all cases, the critical verb assigned a thematic role of 'agent' to its subject NP. In non-violated sentences (e.g. "For breakfast the boys would only eat em leader"), the preceding NP was animate ("boys") and was a likely agent for a given verb ("eat") given its preceding context ("For breakfast"). In both types of conceptually violated sentences, the NPs were unlikely agents for the verbs given their preceding contexts. In 'thematic role animacy violations' (e.g. "For breakfast the eggs would only eat em leader"), the NP was inanimate ("eggs") and was therefore more likely to occupy the role of 'theme' than 'agent', i.e. eggs, being inanimate, cannot eat but they can be eaten. In 'non-thematic role pragmatic violations' (e.g. "For breakfast the boys would only bury em leader"), the thematic role of agent assigned by the verb ("bury") to its preceding NP ("boys") is inherently acceptable (boys can bury), but the sentence is still pragmatically incongruous given the preceding context ("At breakfast"). As expected, the non-thematic role pragmatic violations elicited a significant N400 effect. The thematic role animacy violations elicited a smaller N400 effect that only approached significance across all participants. The thematic role animacy violations, however, elicited a significant P600 effect-an ERP component that is most commonly associated with processing syntactic information during language comprehension. We discuss the possibility that the P600 was elicited by the thematic role animacy violations (but not by the non-thematic role pragmatic violations) because, in the former but not the latter, there was an online attempt to structurally repair and make sense of the sentences by reassigning the thematic role of the NP that preceded the critical verb from 'agent' to 'theme'. Our findings suggest a qualitative neural distinction in processing these two types of conceptual anomalies within simple, unambiguous sentences.
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We review the discovery, characterization, and evolving use of the N400, an event-related brain potential response linked to meaning processing. We describe the elicitation of N400s by an impressive range of stimulus types--including written, spoken, and signed words or pseudowords; drawings, photos, and videos of faces, objects, and actions; sounds; and mathematical symbols--and outline the sensitivity of N400 amplitude (as its latency is remarkably constant) to linguistic and nonlinguistic manipulations. We emphasize the effectiveness of the N400 as a dependent variable for examining almost every aspect of language processing and highlight its expanding use to probe semantic memory and to determine how the neurocognitive system dynamically and flexibly uses bottom-up and top-down information to make sense of the world. We conclude with different theories of the N400's functional significance and offer an N400-inspired reconceptualization of how meaning processing might unfold.
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We present evidence for a monitoring process in language perception at the word level, reflected by a P600. This P600 is triggered when a conflict evolves because the brain encounters an unexpected linguistic item when another item is highly expected. To resolve this conflict between representations, the brain monitors the input to check for possible processing errors. A P600 was hypothesized to occur after orthographic anomalies, like pseudohomophones, in particular when the word from which the pseudohomophone is derived is highly expected. This hypothesis was tested by recording ERPs while participants read high-cloze sentences ('In that library the pupils borrow books....') and low-cloze sentences ('The pillows are stuffed with books....'). In a pretest, the high-cloze sentences were produced by more than 90% of the subjects, while the low-cloze sentences were never produced. In half of the sentences, the critical word books was replaced by a pseudohomophone (e.g., bouks), which in the high-cloze sentences orthographically and phonologically resembles the highly expected word. Consistent with the monitoring hypothesis, only pseudohomophones in high-cloze sentences elicited a widely distributed P600 effect while pseudohomophones in low-cloze sentences did not. A standard N400 effect of cloze probability occurred both for words and pseudohomophones. The present ERP results support the view that there is a process of monitoring that takes place in language perception which is reflected by the P600. It occurs whenever a conflict between a strong tendency to accept and one to reject a word brings the cognitive system in state of indecision.
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Syntactic anomalies reliably elicit P600 effects. Recent studies, however, reported P600 effects to semantic anomalies. These findings are difficult to reconcile with the common view on the P600 as a purely syntactic component. The present study--carried out in Dutch--tested the possibility that a P600 to semantic anomalies would nevertheless reflect syntactic processing. We presented semantic reversal anomalies in syntactically correct and unambiguous sentences, like #The cat that fled from the mice.... If participants would use a plausibility strategy and combine the lexical items in the most plausible way, they would--in the case of the example--assume that the mice were fleeing from the cat. Furthermore, this interpretation could lead them to expect a particular inflection of the verb (here: plural inflection). The violation of this expectation could have elicited the P600 effect. Such a syntactic mismatch can occur only in sentences in which the number of theme and agent are different. Therefore, in the present study, the number of theme and agent was either different or the same. A centroparietal P600 effect was present not only in different number sentences but also in same number sentences. Consequently, the P600 effect was not due to a syntactic mismatch, thereby challenging a purely syntactic account of the P600. An alternative view concerning the functional significance of the P600 is discussed, i.e., that it reflects a monitoring component that checks upon the veridicality of ones sentence perception.
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Narratives typically consist of information on multiple aspects of a situation. In order to successfully create a coherent representation of the described situation, readers are required to monitor all these situational dimensions during reading. However, little is known about whether these dimensions differ in the ease with which they can be monitored. In the present study, we examined whether children in Grades 4 and 6 monitor four different dimensions (i.e., emotion, causation, time, and space) during reading, using a self-paced reading task containing inconsistencies. Furthermore, to explore what causes failure in inconsistency detection, we differentiated between monitoring processes related to availability and validation of information by manipulating the distance between two pieces of conflicting information. The results indicated that the monitoring processes varied as a function of dimension. Children were able to validate emotional and causal information when it was still active in working memory, but this was not the case for temporal and spatial information. When context and target information were more distant from each other, only emotionally charged information remained available for further monitoring processes. These findings show that the influence of different situational dimensions should be taken into account when studying children's reading comprehension.
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In two ERP experiments, we asked whether comprehenders used the concessive connective,, to predict upcoming events. Participants read coherent and incoherent scenarios, with and without, e.g. "Elizabeth had a history exam on Monday. She took the test and aced/failed it. (Even so), she went home and celebrated wildly.", as they rated coherence (Experiment 1) or simply answered intermittent comprehension questions (Experiment 2). The semantic function of was used to reverse real-world knowledge predictions, leading to an attenuated N400 to coherent versus incoherent target words ("celebrated"). Moreover, its pragmatic communicative function enhanced predictive processing, leading to more N400 attenuation to coherent targets in scenarios with than without. This benefit however, did not come for free: the detection of failed event predictions triggered a later posterior positivity and/or an anterior negativity effect, and costs of maintaining alternative likelihood relations manifest as a sustained negativity effect on sentence-final words.
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