语义加工中知觉系统的卷入——来自颜色适应的证据

Involvement of Perceptual Systems in Semantic Processing:Evidence from the Adaptation Paradigm

具身语义观认为,语义和知觉的加工本质上是相同的,这两种加工过程有部分重叠的加工机制和神经基础。关于颜色概念的加工机制可以用来检验具身语义观。采用适应范式,探讨具有“红—绿”颜色的物体名词在加工时是否产生颜色知觉后效,以揭示物体词的颜色属性在加工时是否也运用了颜色知觉相类似的感知机制。实验1先让被试阅读与特定颜色相关的物体词,之后再判断色块的颜色。结果表明,让被试加工多个指代同种颜色的物体名词后,他们对互补色的反应快于对非互补色的反应,表明颜色物体词的加工会即时地激活相应的颜色知觉系统,进而产生相应的颜色知觉的后效。实验2先让被试看色块,之后再判断物体词指示物的颜色。结果表明,当延长色块的呈现时间后,对与色块颜色互补的物体词颜色判断时间显著更快,快于对非互补色的物体词颜色的判断时间,即颜色知觉加工也会直接影响物体词的颜色加工。两项实验从对词汇颜色特征加工与颜色知觉加工之间的关系出发,证明了互补促进效应的存在,表明物体词颜色属性的加工与颜色知觉有着密切的关系,可能存在部分重叠的神经机制。这一结果为具身语义观提供了重要证据,表明语言理解是具身的,而不是独立于身体之外的加工过程。

Theories of embodied semantic proposed that the processing of semantics and perception are essentially the same,and the two processes have partially overlapping processing mechanisms and neural bases.Previous study had particularly focused on whether the processing of color words facilitate color perception,which is often cited as evidence supporting the theory of embodied semantic.Adopting the adaptation paradigm,this study explored whether there would be a color aftereffect in the processing of the object words with a high color association(i.e.red-green),trying to reveal whether the processing of object words with high color association would involve the similar mechanism in the color perception.There are two experiments in this study.In experiment one,participants performed a color detection task after reading words with high color association(i.e.,color diagnosticity).It turned out when an adaptation paradigm was adopted,that is,after participants processed a number of words associated to the same color,their reaction time to the color was shorter in the complementary condition than in the match condition,suggesting that processing of words with a high color association instantly activates the related color perception neural system.In experiment two participants looked at color circles and then judged the color implied by the words with a high color association.When prolonged the time of color circles'exposure,participants'reaction time to the color judgement of the color association words was shorter in the complementary condition than in the match condition,suggesting that the processing of color perception directly influences the processing of words with high color association.Our study proved that there is a complementary color advantage in the adaption aftereffect,suggesting that the processing of color-associated words and the color perception are closely related,which provides evidence for their having some overlapping neural systems.This result provides important evidence for the embodied semantic view,suggesting that language comprehension is embodied rather than a process independent of the body.