Brock Jon, Norbury Courtenay, Einav Shiri, Nation Kate
Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, OX1 3UD, UK.
Cognition. 2008 Sep;108(3):896-904. doi: 10.1016/j.cognition.2008.06.007. Epub 2008 Aug 8.
It is widely argued that people with autism have difficulty processing ambiguous linguistic information in context. To investigate this claim, we recorded the eye-movements of 24 adolescents with autism spectrum disorder and 24 language-matched peers as they monitored spoken sentences for words corresponding to objects on a computer display. Following a target word, participants looked more at a competitor object sharing the same onset than at phonologically unrelated objects. This effect was, however, mediated by the sentence context such that participants looked less at the phonological competitor if it was semantically incongruous with the preceding verb. Contrary to predictions, the two groups evidenced similar effects of context on eye-movements. Instead, across both groups, the effect of sentence context was reduced in individuals with relatively poor language skills. Implications for the weak central coherence account of autism are discussed.
人们普遍认为，患有自闭症的人在处理语境中模糊的语言信息时存在困难。为了研究这一说法，我们记录了24名患有自闭症谱系障碍的青少年和24名语言能力匹配的同龄人在监测口语句子中与电脑屏幕上物体相对应的单词时的眼动情况。在一个目标单词之后，参与者看向起始音相同的竞争物体的次数多于音素不相关的物体。然而，这种效应受到句子语境的调节，即如果语音竞争者与前一个动词在语义上不一致，参与者看向它的次数就会减少。与预测相反，两组在语境对眼动的影响上表现出相似的效果。相反，在两组中，语言技能相对较差的个体中句子语境的影响有所减弱。本文讨论了自闭症弱中央连贯性理论的相关影响。
