Guthormsen Amy M, Fisher Kristie J, Bassok Miriam, Osterhout Lee, DeWolf Melissa, Holyoak Keith J
Los Alamos National Laboratory.
Microsoft Studios.
Cogn Sci. 2016 Apr;40(3):723-57. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12238. Epub 2015 Apr 10.
Research on language processing has shown that the disruption of conceptual integration gives rise to specific patterns of event-related brain potentials (ERPs)-N400 and P600 effects. Here, we report similar ERP effects when adults performed cross-domain conceptual integration of analogous semantic and mathematical relations. In a problem-solving task, when participants generated labeled answers to semantically aligned and misaligned arithmetic problems (e.g., 6 roses + 2 tulips = ? vs. 6 roses + 2 vases = ?), the second object label in misaligned problems yielded an N400 effect for addition (but not division) problems. In a verification task, when participants judged arithmetically correct but semantically misaligned problem sentences to be "unacceptable," the second object label in misaligned sentences elicited a P600 effect. Thus, depending on task constraints, misaligned problems can show either of two ERP signatures of conceptual disruption. These results show that well-educated adults can integrate mathematical and semantic relations on the rapid timescale of within-domain ERP effects by a process akin to analogical mapping.
语言处理研究表明，概念整合的中断会引发特定模式的事件相关脑电位（ERP）——N400和P600效应。在此，我们报告了成年人在进行类似语义和数学关系的跨领域概念整合时出现的类似ERP效应。在一项解决问题的任务中，当参与者对语义对齐和语义不对齐的算术问题（例如，6朵玫瑰 + 2朵郁金香 = ？与6朵玫瑰 + 2个花瓶 = ？）生成带标签的答案时，对于加法（而非除法）问题，不对齐问题中的第二个对象标签会产生N400效应。在一项验证任务中，当参与者判断算术正确但语义不对齐的问题句子为“不可接受”时，不对齐句子中的第二个对象标签会引发P600效应。因此，根据任务限制，不对齐问题可以表现出概念中断的两种ERP特征中的任何一种。这些结果表明，受过良好教育的成年人能够通过类似于类比映射的过程，在域内ERP效应的快速时间尺度上整合数学和语义关系。
