Fiorentino Robert, Covey Lauren, Gabriele Alison
Neurolinguistics & Language Processing Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, Dole Human Development Center, Room 4037, 1000 Sunnyside Ave., University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, United States.
Neurolinguistics & Language Processing Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, Dole Human Development Center, Room 4037, 1000 Sunnyside Ave., University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, United States; Second Language Acquisition Laboratory, Department of Linguistics, Dole Human Development Center, Room 4035, 1000 Sunnyside Ave., University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045, United States.
Neurosci Lett. 2018 Apr 23;673:79-84. doi: 10.1016/j.neulet.2018.02.014. Epub 2018 Feb 11.
The present study examines the processing of referential ambiguity and referential failure using event-related potentials (ERPs). Participants read sentences with pronouns (he, she) which contained either one, two, or no potential gender-matching antecedents. Participants also took tests of working memory (Count Span/Reading Span) and attentional control (Number Stroop). In contexts of referential ambiguity with two potential gender-matching antecedents, two different responder types emerged, with some participants yielding a sustained negativity (Nref) and others a sustained positivity. For individuals who elicited Nref, the size of the effect was related to working memory such that higher Count Span scores were related to a larger Nref. For individuals who elicited a positivity, the effect was marginally related to attentional control such that better performance on the Stroop was related to a less positive, or increasingly negative-going ERP effect. Contexts of referential failure, with no gender-matching antecedents, yielded P600 for all participants, suggesting that participants may treat the failure of the pronoun to agree in gender with the antecedents as a violation despite the absence of an explicit acceptability judgment task.
本研究使用事件相关电位（ERP）来考察指代歧义与指代失败的处理过程。参与者阅读包含代词（他、她）的句子，这些句子含有一个、两个或没有潜在的性别匹配先行词。参与者还进行了工作记忆测试（计数广度/阅读广度）和注意力控制测试（数字斯特鲁普测试）。在具有两个潜在性别匹配先行词的指代歧义情境中，出现了两种不同的反应类型，一些参与者产生持续负波（Nref），另一些参与者产生持续正波。对于引发Nref的个体，效应大小与工作记忆有关，即更高的计数广度分数与更大的Nref相关。对于引发正波的个体，效应与注意力控制有微弱关联，即斯特鲁普测试表现越好，ERP效应越不正向，或越来越负向。在没有性别匹配先行词的指代失败情境中，所有参与者都产生了P600，这表明尽管没有明确的可接受性判断任务，但参与者可能将代词与先行词性别不一致视为一种违反。
