篇章阅读理解中句子边界对整体连贯性的影响

The Role of Sentence Boundary on Maintaining the GlobalCoherence in Discourse Reading

通过四个实验考察句子边界对整体连贯性的影响。实验运用不一致程序(inconsistentparadigm)进行。实验一结果发现,当目标行1(targetline)不是一个完整句子时,被试阅读完目标行2(post targetline)后才会意识到目标行1中的不一致。实验二结果发现,当目标行1是一个完整句子时,被试阅读完目标行1后就可立刻意识到其中的不一致,但探测词的反应时在两种条件下则并没有明显差异。这两个实验的结果表明,句子边界作为一种信号,提示读者在阅读下一句子前要完成当前句子的整合加工。实验三结果发现,目标行1以一个无关词(如然后)结束时,被试阅读完目标行1后也可立刻注意到其中的不一致,这表明句号对背景信息的整合不是必需的。实验四考察了分号的作用,结果显示:被试阅读完目标行1后并没有意识到其中的冲突。根据本研究的结果,可以推测句号在理解过程中起着重要影响,而其它句子边界(如:分号)的作用则并不明显。

Four experiments were conducted using a line -by-line reading paradigm to examine the role of sentence boundaries. In Experiment 1, readers were delayed in noticing a contradiction on a target line when the sentence continued onto a post-target line. Consistent with this, in Experiment 2, target line was an intact sentence.The result of a recognition probe demonstrated that there was no significant difference between the consistent version and inconsistent version. The participants noticed the contradiction as soon as they completed reading the target line. From Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, it could be concluded that sentence boundary play an important role in reading. They may be a signal which lets the readers integrate the current sentence before they read the following sentence. The goal of Experiment 3 was to investigate whether it was necessary in discourse comprehension. The result of Experiment 3 demonstrated that sentence boundary was sufficient to facilitate the integration of related background information but not necessary. Now that the period can affect the discourse comprehension, what about the semicolon? In Experiment 4, the result showed that the semicolon made no difference in integration of current sentence. In a word, period is an influential factor to reading but semicolon not.