Department of Psychology, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua, China.
School of Psychology, Fujian Normal University, Fuzhou, China.
Q J Exp Psychol (Hove). 2021 Jan;74(1):45-53. doi: 10.1177/1747021820945208. Epub 2020 Aug 4.
Contrastive focus implies a contrast between two elements. However, it is unclear whether and how any interplay between such a contrast and similarity between potentially contrasting elements might affect focus processing. Accordingly, we report an eye movement experiment investigating this issue. The experiment used a background story to introduce eight characters whose social identities were manipulated to be similar or dissimilar. Participants first read this background story, then a series of two-sentence discourses while their eye movements were recorded. Each discourse referred to two characters from the passage who had either similar or dissimilar identities, with one (the target character) either focused using the Chinese particle (meaning ) or unfocused. The results showed a typical focus facilitation effect, such that target character names were processed more quickly when focused than unfocused. We also observed a main effect of the similarity/dissimilarly of characters and, crucially, an interaction between this variable and focus. This interaction was due to slower processing of a post-target region when the target character was focused and the two characters had similar rather than dissimilar identities, but no such effect when the target character was unfocused. The findings suggest that establishing a contrast between referents is effortful during reading when these have similar rather than dissimilar social identities and so are more difficult to differentiate. The distinctiveness of referents in a discourse context may therefore constrain the establishment of contrastive focus during reading. We discuss these findings in relation to current theories of focus interpretation.
对比焦点意味着两个元素之间的对比。然而，目前尚不清楚这种对比与潜在对比元素之间的相似性之间的相互作用是否以及如何影响焦点处理。因此，我们报告了一项眼动实验，该实验研究了这个问题。该实验使用背景故事介绍了八个角色，其社会身份被操纵为相似或不同。参与者首先阅读这个背景故事，然后在阅读过程中记录他们的眼动。每句话都提到了来自文章中的两个角色，他们的身份要么相似，要么不同，其中一个（目标角色）要么使用中文助词“的”（意思是“的”）聚焦，要么不聚焦。结果显示出典型的焦点促进效应，即当目标字符聚焦时，其处理速度比不聚焦时更快。我们还观察到角色相似性/相异性的主要影响，以及关键的是，该变量与焦点之间的交互作用。这种交互作用是由于当目标字符聚焦且两个字符具有相似而不是不同的身份时，在目标字符之后的区域处理速度较慢，但当目标字符不聚焦时则没有这种影响。研究结果表明，当具有相似而不是不同的社会身份的参照具有相似而不是不同的社会身份时，在阅读过程中建立参照之间的对比是费力的，因此更难以区分。因此，话语语境中参照的独特性可能会限制阅读过程中对比焦点的建立。我们将这些发现与当前的焦点解释理论联系起来进行讨论。
