具身模拟在汉语肢体动作动词理解中的作用

Effects of embodied simulation on understanding Chinese body action verbs

通过3个实验,考察具身模拟在汉语肢体动作动词理解中的作用。实验1考察在整字启动下具身模拟对运动通道中箭头方向判断的影响,发现理解肢体动作动词在运动通道中存在着动作–汉字相容效应,汉字的具身方向与箭头方向一致促进被试对箭头方向的判断。实验2考察在整字启动下具身经验对视觉通道中字母位置判断的影响,发现理解肢体动作动词在视觉通道中存在着动作–汉字相容效应,汉字的具身方位与字母方位一致促进对字母方位的识别。实验3采用义符启动范式考察义符与整字的具身模拟,发现理解汉语肢体动作动词不仅在整字层次上存在着具身模拟,在部件层次上也存在着具身模拟。义符在汉字加工中期被激活了,并且持续到加工晚期。整个研究表明,汉语肢体动作动词理解是一个跨通道的具身模拟过程,具身模拟在汉语肢体动作动词的理解中起着非常重要的作用。

Recent approaches on embodied cognition and theories of semantic and conceptual "grounding" have emphasized the role of perceptual and motor skills in language comprehension and action understanding. Evidence on the role of sensorimotor information in language processing has been obtained from behavioral and neuroimaging studies. These findings have been taken as a support for the claim that language is understood through sensorimotor simulations of actions and events being described. The theory on Perceptual Symbol Systems holds that the sensorimotor system participates in the language comprehension process, which is an empirical simulation of a situation through a series of complex language cues. Chinese characters may show different characteristics from English words because semantic radicals are linked with the meaning of these characters. These semantic radicals may affect the embodied effect of Chinese characters. In the study, authors used single-character body action verbs in Chinese as experimental materials. Body action verbs are words that use body parts to perform mechanical movements. The directional semantic feature of body action verbs reflects the direction of physical space and can be perceived. Experiment 1 investigated the influence of semantic direction on the spatial judgment of an arrow direction in the motion channel under whole word priming. The repeated measurement design of 2(Chinese character embodied direction: up/down) × 2(arrow direction: up/down) was adopted. Thirty-five participants volunteered in this study. Experiment 2 investigated the influence of semantic orientation on the spatial judgment of letter orientation in visual channels under whole word initiation. The repeated measurement design of 2(Chinese character direction: up/down) × 2(letter position: up/down) design was used. Thirty-eight participants took part in this experiment. Experiment 3 investigated the embodied simulation of the semantic radical and whole character under the radical priming paradigm. Chinese body action verbs formed by semantic radicals "扌" and "?" were used as experimental materials. A within–subject design of 2(priming type: semantic radical’s priming/control priming) × 3(character type: consistent/inconsistent) × 3(SOA: 43 ms/72 ms/243 ms) was used. Before the behavioral experiment, the participants were asked to hold their hands up for one minute to reinforce the bodybuilding experience of having their hands above and their feet below. Character type shows the direction and orientation between the character and its semantic radical. Consistent character type means that the character and its semantic radical have a similar direction and orientation. For example, the semantic radical "?" means "foot, " which is below the body. Thus, "蹲" is a consistent character, whereas "跳" is an inconsistent character. Results suggest the following:(1) When Chinese characters are in a downward semantic direction, the downward arrow is judged faster than the upward arrow. When characters are in an upward semantic direction, the direction of the arrow has a null effect.(2) Chinese characters with upward semantic movement can be used to recognize upper letters more quickly and characters with downward semantic movement can be used to recognize lower letters more quickly.(3) In the middle and late stages of Chinese character processing, the response of consistent and inconsistent Chinese characters is significantly different, indicating that the semantic radical is activated from the middle stage of the Chinese character processing until the late stage. The present findings demonstrate the following:(1) An action–character compatibility effect is present in Chinese body movement verbs in the movement and visual channels. Understanding Chinese body movement verbs is a cross-channel embodied simulation process.(2) The semantic radical activation of the phonogram starts from the middle stage to the late stage of Chinese body action verb processing. A semantic understanding of Chinese body action verbs has an embodied simulation at the whole character and component(semantic radical) levels.