Department of Linguistics and Cognitive Science, University of Delaware, Newark, DE, USA.
Rutgers University Center for Cognitive Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.
Psychophysiology. 2020 Dec;57(12):e13676. doi: 10.1111/psyp.13676. Epub 2020 Sep 2.
While sentence processing is generally a highly incremental and predictive process, negation seems to present an exception to this generalization. Two-step models of negation processing claim that predicate negation is computed only after the meaning of the core proposition has been computed. Several ERP studies eliciting the N400 (an index of semantic integration or lexical expectation) have found a "negation-blind" pattern of N400 results, suggesting that the negation has not been integrated into the overall sentence meaning by the time the critical word for the N400 is encountered. Recent research, however, showed that the N400 was sensitive to the negation-modulated truth value of the sentence when negation was pragmatically licensed. We investigate the possibility that negation-blind N400 is due to under-informativeness of stimuli in past experiments. We found that ERPs to simple class-exclusion statements ("A hammer is not a bird") still exhibit negation blindness, even when negation is presented in a more meaningful context. The current findings provide new support for late/non-incremental interpretation of negation even when negation is pragmatically licensed.
虽然句子处理通常是一个高度增量和预测性的过程，但否定似乎是对这种概括的例外。否定处理的两步模型声称，谓语否定仅在核心命题的含义被计算之后才被计算。几项诱发 N400（语义整合或词汇预期的指标）的 ERP 研究发现了一种“否定盲”的 N400 结果模式，这表明在遇到关键的 N400 词时，否定词还没有被整合到整个句子的意思中。然而，最近的研究表明，当否定词在语用上被许可时，N400 对句子的否定调制的真值是敏感的。我们研究了否定盲 N400 是由于过去实验中刺激信息不足的可能性。我们发现，即使在更有意义的语境中呈现否定词，对简单的类别排除陈述（“锤子不是鸟”）的 ERP 仍然表现出否定盲。当前的研究结果为否定的晚期/非增量解释提供了新的支持，即使否定在语用上被许可。
