ABSTRACT

During language comprehension, comprehenders form mental representations of the described events. We investigate discourse-level and verb-level cues that guide this process. In particular, we investigate how comprehenders represent object states when events are described with manner verbs that do not entail change-of-state (e.g. hit, wash): a potential change-of-state of the object can be inferred but is not semantically required. We report two reaction-time-based experiments (Experiment 1: lexical decision, Experiment 2: self-paced reading) that investigated how rapidly comprehenders process linguistic material associated with potential change-of-state inferences, in contexts where the preceding discourse context and verb-level information are manipulated. In both experiments, we find an interaction between discourse-level information and verb-level information in guiding object state representations. We highlight the need to take into account discourse-level factors in theorising about the cognitive process of understanding the dynamics of event representation during language comprehension.

摘要

在语言理解过程中，理解者形成所描述事件的心理表征。我们调查指导这个过程的话语级别和动词级别的线索。特别是，我们研究了当事件用不涉及状态变化的方式动词（例如，hit、wash）描述时，理解者如何表示对象状态)：可以推断出对象的潜在状态变化，但在语义上不是必需的。我们报告了两个基于反应时间的实验（实验 1：词汇决策，实验 2：自定进度阅读），这些实验调查了在前面的话语上下文和动词级别的信息被操纵。在这两个实验中，我们发现在指导对象状态表示中，话语级信息和动词级信息之间存在相互作用。我们强调在对语言理解过程中理解事件表征动态的认知过程进行理论化时，需要考虑话语层面的因素。