Max-Planck-Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Leipzig, Germany.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2011 Feb;23(2):277-93. doi: 10.1162/jocn.2010.21411. Epub 2010 Jan 4.
Although the neurocognitive processes underlying the comprehension of figurative language, especially metaphors and idioms, have been studied extensively, less is known about the processing of irony. In two experiments using event-related brain potentials (ERPs), we examined the types of cognitive processes involved in the comprehension of ironic and literal sentences and their relative time course. The experiments varied in modality (auditory, visual), task demands (comprehension task vs. passive reading), and probability of stimulus occurrence. ERPs consistently revealed a large late positivity (i.e., P600 component) in the absence of an N400 component for irony compared to equivalent literal sentences independent of modality. This P600 was shown to be unaffected by the factors task demands and probability of occurrence. Taken together, the findings suggest that the observed P600 is related to irony processing, and might be a reflection of pragmatic interpretation processes. During the comprehension of irony, no semantic integration difficulty arises (absence of N400), but late inferential processes appear to be necessary for understanding ironic meanings (presence of P600). This finding calls for a revision of current models of figurative language processing.
尽管人们已经对隐喻和习语等比喻性语言理解的神经认知过程进行了广泛研究，但对于反讽的处理过程知之甚少。在两项使用事件相关脑电位（ERP）的实验中，我们研究了理解反讽和字面句子所涉及的认知过程的类型及其相对时间进程。实验在模态（听觉、视觉）、任务要求（理解任务与被动阅读）和刺激出现概率方面有所不同。与相应的字面句子相比，无论模态如何，反讽句子都会在没有 N400 成分的情况下产生一个较大的晚期正电位（即 P600 成分）。该 P600 不受任务要求和出现概率因素的影响。综合来看，这些发现表明观察到的 P600 与反讽处理有关，可能反映了语用解释过程。在理解反讽时，不会出现语义整合困难（没有 N400），但似乎需要进行后期推断过程才能理解反讽含义（存在 P600）。这一发现要求对当前的比喻性语言处理模型进行修订。
