Han Yi-Jhong, Huang Shuo-Chieh, Lee Chia-Ying, Kuo Wen-Jui, Cheng Shih-Kuen
Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, National Central University, No. 300, Jhongda Rd., Jhongli City, Taoyuan County, 32001, Taiwan.
Mem Cognit. 2014 Nov;42(8):1315-24. doi: 10.3758/s13421-014-0430-1.
This study demonstrated that semantic transparency as a linguistic property modulates the recognition memory for two-character Chinese words, with opaque words (i.e., words whose meanings cannot be derived from constituent characters-e.g., "[/guang/, light][/gun/, stick]", bachelor) remembered better than transparent words (i.e., words whose meanings can be derived from constituent characters-e.g., "[/cha/, tea][/bei/, cup]", teacup). In Experiment 1, the participants made lexical decisions on transparent words, opaque words, and nonwords in the study and then engaged in an old/new recognition test. Experiment 2 employed a concreteness judgment as the encoding task to ensure equivalent semantic processing for opaque and transparent words. In Experiment 3, the neighborhood size of the two-character words was manipulated together with their semantic transparency. In all three experiments, opaque words were found to be better remembered than transparent words. We concluded that the conceptual incongruence between the meanings of a whole word and its constituent characters made opaque words more distinctive and, hence, better remembered than transparent words.
本研究表明，语义透明度作为一种语言属性，会调节对双字中文词的识别记忆，不透明词（即其含义无法从组成字符推导出来的词，例如“[/guang/, 光][/gun/, 棍]”，单身汉）比透明词（即其含义可从组成字符推导出来的词，例如“[/cha/, 茶][/bei/, 杯]”，茶杯）记得更好。在实验1中，参与者在学习阶段对透明词、不透明词和非词进行词汇判断，然后进行旧/新识别测试。实验2采用具体性判断作为编码任务，以确保对不透明词和透明词进行等效的语义加工。在实验3中，双字中文词的邻域大小与其语义透明度一起受到操纵。在所有这三个实验中，都发现不透明词比透明词记得更好。我们得出结论，整个词的含义与其组成字符之间在概念上的不一致，使得不透明词比透明词更具独特性，因此也记得更好。
