Sundermeier Brian A, Virtue Sandra M, Marsolek Chad J, van den Broek Paul
Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
Brain Lang. 2005 Dec;95(3):402-13. doi: 10.1016/j.bandl.2005.03.005.
In this study, we investigated whether the left and right hemispheres are differentially involved in causal inference generation. Participants read short inference-promoting texts that described either familiar or less-familiar scenarios. After each text, they performed a lexical decision on a letter string (which sometimes constituted an inference-related word) presented directly to the left or right hemisphere. Response-time results indicated that hemisphere of direct presentation interacted with type of inference scenario. When test stimuli were presented directly to the left hemisphere, lexical decisions were facilitated following familiar but not following less-familiar inference scenarios, whereas when test stimuli were presented directly to the right hemisphere, facilitation was observed in both familiar and less-familiar conditions. Thus, inferences may be generated in different ways depending on which of two dissociable neural subsystems underlies the activation of background information.
在本研究中，我们调查了左右半球在因果推理生成过程中是否存在差异参与。参与者阅读简短的促进推理的文本，这些文本描述了熟悉或不太熟悉的情景。在每篇文本之后，他们对直接呈现给左半球或右半球的字母串（有时构成与推理相关的单词）进行词汇判断。反应时间结果表明，直接呈现的半球与推理情景类型存在交互作用。当测试刺激直接呈现给左半球时，熟悉的推理情景之后词汇判断得到促进，而不太熟悉的推理情景之后则不然；而当测试刺激直接呈现给右半球时，在熟悉和不太熟悉的条件下均观察到促进作用。因此，根据两个可分离的神经子系统中哪一个构成背景信息的激活基础，推理可能以不同的方式产生。
