Dimitrova Diana V, Stowe Laurie A, Hoeks John C J
Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Centre for Cognitive Neuroimaging, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
Center for Language and Cognition Groningen, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands; Neuroimaging Center, University Medical Center Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands.
PLoS One. 2015 May 14;10(5):e0126299. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0126299. eCollection 2015.
Current research on spoken language does not provide a consistent picture as to whether prosody, the melody and rhythm of speech, conveys a specific meaning. Perception studies show that English listeners assign meaning to prosodic patterns, and, for instance, associate some accents with contrast, whereas Dutch listeners behave more controversially. In two ERP studies we tested how Dutch listeners process words carrying two types of accents, which either provided new information (new information accents) or corrected information (corrective accents), both in single sentences (experiment 1) and after corrective and new information questions (experiment 2). In both experiments corrective accents elicited a sustained positivity as compared to new information accents, which started earlier in context than in single sentences. The positivity was not modulated by the nature of the preceding question, suggesting that the underlying neural mechanism likely reflects the construction of an interpretation to the accented word, either by identifying an alternative in context or by inferring it when no context is present. Our experimental results provide strong evidence for inferential processes related to prosodic contours in Dutch.
当前关于口语的研究并未就韵律（言语的旋律和节奏）是否传达特定意义给出一致的描述。感知研究表明，以英语为母语的听众会赋予韵律模式意义，例如，将某些口音与对比联系起来，而以荷兰语为母语的听众的表现则更具争议性。在两项事件相关电位（ERP）研究中，我们测试了以荷兰语为母语的听众如何处理带有两种口音的单词，这两种口音要么提供新信息（新信息口音），要么纠正信息（纠正性口音），这两项测试分别在单个句子中进行（实验1），以及在纠正性和新信息问题之后进行（实验2）。在这两项实验中，与新信息口音相比，纠正性口音引发了持续的正电位，这种正电位在语境中比在单个句子中更早出现。这种正电位不受前一个问题性质的调节，这表明潜在的神经机制可能反映了对带口音单词的解释构建，要么是通过在语境中识别替代项，要么是在没有语境时进行推断。我们的实验结果为荷兰语中与韵律轮廓相关的推理过程提供了有力证据。
