语言加工中的符号相互依存:语言统计和知觉模拟的交互作用

Symbol Interdependency in Language Processing: Interactions between Language Statistics and Perceptual Simulation

在近20年中,认知科学的主导观点认为,具身认知理论可以很好地解释人类的认知活动。根据具身认知理论,知觉模拟在很多认知任务中发挥着关键的或根本性的作用,至少在语言加工任务中就是如此,而语言统计则没有什么作用或作用微弱。符号相互依存假设(The Symbol Interdependency Hypothesis)却持不同的观点,该假设认为,知觉模拟和语言统计在语言加工中都起着重要作用,这是因为语言本身就编码着知觉信息。读者的理解是更多地依赖语言统计还是更多地依赖知觉信息,取决于刺激性质、认知任务、加工时程以及个体差异等因素。

Over the last two decades,the cognitive sciences have been dominated by the view that cognition can best be explained by an embodied cognition account.According to the embodied cognition account,perceptual simulation plays a critical and fundamental role in most cognitive tasks,at least in language processing tasks with no or at least an inferior role for language statistics.The Symbol Interdependency Hypothesis takes a different view by arguing that both perceptual simulation and language statistics play an important role in language processing,because language encodes perceptual information.Dependent on the stimuli,the cognitive task,the time course of processing as well as individual differences,comprehenders rely relatively more on language statistics or on perceptual information.This paper provides an overview of the debate on symbolic and embodied accounts of cognition,and describes and demonstrates evidence in favor of the Symbol Interdependency Hypothesis.