Nieuwland Mante S, Van Berkum Jos J A
University of Amsterdam, Department of Psychology (PN), Roetersstraat 15, 1018 WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Brain Res. 2006 Nov 6;1118(1):155-67. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2006.08.022. Epub 2006 Sep 7.
Although we usually have no trouble finding the right antecedent for a pronoun, the co-reference relations between pronouns and antecedents in everyday language are often 'formally' ambiguous. But a pronoun is only really ambiguous if a reader or listener indeed perceives it to be ambiguous. Whether this is the case may depend on at least two factors: the language processing skills of an individual reader, and the contextual bias towards one particular referential interpretation. In the current study, we used event related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore how both these factors affect the resolution of referentially ambiguous pronouns. We compared ERPs elicited by formally ambiguous and non-ambiguous pronouns that were embedded in simple sentences (e.g., "Jennifer Lopez told Madonna that she had too much money."). Individual differences in language processing skills were assessed with the Reading Span task, while the contextual bias of each sentence (up to the critical pronoun) had been assessed in a referential cloze pretest. In line with earlier research, ambiguous pronouns elicited a sustained, frontal negative shift relative to non-ambiguous pronouns at the group-level. The size of this effect was correlated with Reading Span score, as well as with contextual bias. These results suggest that whether a reader perceives a formally ambiguous pronoun to be ambiguous is subtly co-determined by both individual language processing skills and contextual bias.
虽然我们通常能轻松找到代词的正确先行词，但日常语言中代词与先行词之间的共指关系往往在“形式上”具有歧义性。但只有当读者或听众确实将代词视为有歧义时，代词才真正具有歧义性。情况是否如此可能至少取决于两个因素：个体读者的语言处理能力，以及对某一特定指代解释的语境偏向。在本研究中，我们使用事件相关脑电位（ERP）来探究这两个因素如何影响指代歧义代词的消解。我们比较了嵌入简单句子（例如，“詹妮弗·洛佩兹告诉麦当娜她钱太多了。”）中的形式上有歧义和无歧义代词所引发的ERP。语言处理能力的个体差异通过阅读广度任务进行评估，而每个句子（直到关键代词）的语境偏向则在指代性完形填空预测试中进行了评估。与早期研究一致，在群体层面上，歧义代词相对于无歧义代词引发了持续的额叶负向偏移。这种效应的大小与阅读广度得分以及语境偏向相关。这些结果表明，读者是否将形式上有歧义的代词视为有歧义，在一定程度上是由个体语言处理能力和语境偏向共同微妙地决定的。
