Ziegler J C, Benraïss A, Besson M
Université de Provence, Aix-en-Provence, France.
Psychophysiology. 1999 Nov;36(6):775-85.
This study investigated the role and time-course of phonology in accessing meaning during silent reading. In Experiment 1, the homophone effect was replicated in a semantic categorization task in French. When deciding whether a stimulus belonged to a semantic category (FOOD), subjects made more errors to homophones (MEET) than to orthographic controls (MELT). In Experiment 2, event-related brain potentials (ERPs) were used to study the online development of this effect. If access to meaning was mediated by phonology, smaller N400 components should be obtained to homophones than to orthographic controls. The ERP data exhibited a full-blown N400 component to homophones that did not differ from the N400 to controls. No differences between homophones and controls were found before the N400. After the N400, however, homophones differed from controls, with ERPs to homophones being similar to those of correct category exemplars. The results suggest that the final selection of a word's meaning does not depend on its phonological form. This result is incompatible with a strong phonological view according to which the only way to meaning is via a word's phonology.
本研究调查了语音在默读过程中通达语义时所起的作用及时间进程。在实验1中，在一项法语语义分类任务中重现了同音异形词效应。在判断一个刺激是否属于一个语义类别（食物）时，与正字法对照词（融化）相比，被试对同音异形词（遇见）犯的错误更多。在实验2中，事件相关脑电位（ERP）被用于研究这种效应的在线发展情况。如果语义通达是由语音介导的，那么与正字法对照词相比，对同音异形词应该会获得更小的N400成分。ERP数据显示，对同音异形词呈现出一个完整的N400成分，且与对对照词的N400没有差异。在N400之前，未发现同音异形词和对照词之间存在差异。然而，在N400之后，同音异形词与对照词不同，对同音异形词的ERP与正确类别范例的ERP相似。结果表明，一个词的语义的最终选择并不取决于其语音形式。这一结果与一种强烈的语音观点不一致，该观点认为通达语义的唯一途径是通过一个词的语音。
