隐喻理解中抑制机制的心理实验

Psychological Experiments on Inhibition Mechanism in Metaphor Comprehension

采用意义判断任务,考察隐喻理解中抑制机制的作用。4个实验均采用2×2被试内设计。实验1、2表明,当隐喻理解刚刚完成时,喻体和本体的相关特征均得到激活,无关特征均受到抑制;实验3、4表明,当隐喻理解完成450ms后,喻体和本体的相关特征仍都得到激活,无关特征均不再受到抑制。研究结论为:隐喻理解与字面语言理解一样,需要抑制机制的作用,但抑制机制的作用是脆弱的,在隐喻理解完成以后将以较快的速度衰减。

Four experiments were carried out to investigate the inhibition mechanism in metaphor comprehension. 2 × 2 within subjects design, sensibility judgment task and response time index were used. In experiment land 2, when the interval between response to the priming sentence and presentation of the property sentence is 0ms, both the vehicle＇s properties relevant to figurative meaning and the target＇s properties relevant to figurative meaning were activated, both the vehicle＇s properties irrelevant to figurative meaning and the target＇s properties irrelevant to figurative meaning were inhibited. In experiment 3 and 4, when the interval between response to the priming sentence and presentation of the property sentence is 450ms, both the vehicle＇s properties relevant to figurative meaning and the target＇s properties relevant to figurative meaning were still activated, while both the vehicle＇s properties irrelevant to figurative meaning and the target＇s properties irrelevant to figurative meaning were not inhibited. The results show. the inhibition mechanism that underlies literal language comprehension is also crucial for metaphor comprehension, but it is fragile and will decay rapidly after a metaphor is understood.