Sedivy J C, Tanenhaus M K, Chambers C G, Carlson G N
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences, Brown University, Providence, RI 02912, USA.
Cognition. 1999 Jun 22;71(2):109-47. doi: 10.1016/s0010-0277(99)00025-6.
While much work has been done investigating the role of context in the incremental processing of syntactic indeterminacies, relatively little is known about online semantic interpretation. The experiments in this article made use of the eye-tracking paradigm with spoken language and visual contexts in order to examine how, and when listeners make use of contextually-defined contrast in interpreting simple prenominal adjectives. Experiment 1 focused on intersective adjectives. Experiment 1A provided further evidence that intersective adjectives are processed incrementally. Experiment 1B compared response times to follow instructions such as 'Pick up the blue comb' under conditions where there were two blue objects (e.g. a blue pen and a blue comb), but only one of these objects had a contrasting member in the display. Responses were faster to objects with a contrasting member, establishing that the listeners initially assume a contrastive interpretation for intersective adjectives. Experiments 2 and 3 focused on vague scalar adjectives examining the time course with which listeners establish contrast for scalar adjectives such as tall using information provided by the head noun (e.g. glass) and information provided by the visual context. Use of head-based information was examined by manipulating the typicality of the target object (e.g. whether it was a good or poor example of a tall glass. Use of context-dependent contrast was examined by either having only a single glass in the display (the no contrast condition) or a contrasting object (e.g. a smaller glass). The pattern of results indicated that listeners interpreted the scalar adjective incrementally taking into account context-specific contrast prior to encountering the head. Moreover, the presence of a contrasting object, sharply reduced, and in some conditions completely eliminated, typicality effects. The results suggest a language processing system in which semantic interpretation, as well as syntactic processing, is conducted incrementally, with early integration of contextual information.
虽然在研究语境在句法不确定性的增量处理中的作用方面已经做了很多工作，但对于在线语义解释却知之甚少。本文中的实验利用眼动追踪范式，结合口语和视觉语境，以研究听众如何以及何时在解释简单的名词前形容词时利用语境定义的对比。实验1聚焦于交集形容词。实验1A提供了进一步的证据，表明交集形容词是增量处理的。实验1B比较了在有两个蓝色物体（如蓝色钢笔和蓝色梳子）但其中只有一个物体在展示中有对比物的情况下，遵循“拿起蓝色梳子”等指令的反应时间。对有对比物的物体的反应更快，这表明听众最初会对交集形容词进行对比性解释。实验2和3聚焦于模糊的标量形容词，研究听众利用名词（如杯子）提供的信息和视觉语境提供的信息为标量形容词（如高）建立对比的时间进程。通过操纵目标物体的典型性（如它是高杯子的好例子还是坏例子）来检验基于名词的信息的使用。通过在展示中只放一个杯子（无对比条件）或一个对比物（如一个更小的杯子）来检验依赖语境的对比的使用。结果模式表明，听众在遇到名词之前就会增量地解释标量形容词，并考虑到特定语境的对比。此外，对比物的存在显著减少了，在某些情况下完全消除了典型性效应。结果表明存在一种语言处理系统，其中语义解释以及句法处理都是增量进行的，并且语境信息会早期整合。
