沃尔夫假说的新证据:范畴内和范畴间颜色辨别难度相同时语言范畴也会影响注意前颜色知觉

New Evidence for Whorf Hypothesis: Lexical Categories Affect Preattentive Color Perception when Within-and Between-category Colors are Equally Discriminable

该研究探讨了当范畴内和范畴间颜色的辨别难度相同时,语言范畴是否会影响注意前颜色知觉。实验中,采用渐变且相邻者差别阈限数相当的A、B、C、D四种颜色(前两者为绿色,后两者为蓝色)为刺激材料,并让被试接受视觉Oddball脑电测试。脑电测试分视野给被试呈现标准刺激,以及与标准刺激属同一语言范畴(即颜色词绿色或蓝色)或不同语言范畴的偏差刺激。结果发现:在左视野呈现时,范畴内偏差刺激比范畴间偏差刺激诱发了边缘显著更大的视觉失匹配负波(v MMN),在右视野呈现时,两类偏差刺激诱发的v MMN无显著差异;范畴内偏差刺激在不同视野呈现时诱发的v MMN无显著差异,范畴间偏差刺激则在右视野呈现时诱发了显著更大的v MMN。这一结果表明,当范畴内和范畴间颜色的辨别难度相同时,语言范畴也会影响早期的、注意前颜色知觉,支持了沃尔夫假说。

The present study investigated whether lexical categories affect preattentive color perception when withinand between-category colors are equally discriminable.Four gradual colors(two greens and two blues),with within-and between-category colors equated in the number of just-noticeable differences,were used.Event-related potentials(ERPs)were monitored during a visual oddball task where standard and deviant colored stimuli from the same or different lexical categories were presented.ERPs showed that,within-category deviants evoked a marginal significantly larger vMMN than the between-category deviants when the stimuli were presented in the left visual field(LVF),but no such difference was observed when stimuli were presented in the right visual field(RVF).Further,between-category deviants evoked a significantly larger vMMN when the stimuli were presented in the RVF,but within-category deviants evoked similar vMMNs when the stimuli were presented in different visual fields.These results suggested that lexical categories affect preattentive color perception when within-and between-category colors are equally discriminable,supporting the Whorf Hypothesis.