Oracle Cloud Infrastructure.
Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders, University of Iowa.
Cogn Sci. 2020 Oct;44(10):e12885. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12885.
Whereas a growing bulk of work has demonstrated that both adults and children are sensitive to frequently occurring word sequences, little is known about the potential role of meaning in the processing of such multiword chunks. Here, we take a first step toward assessing the contribution of meaningfulness in the processing of multiword sequences, using items that varied in chunk meaningfulness. In a phrasal-decision study, we compared reaction times for triads of three-word sequences, corresponding to idiomatic expressions, compositional phrases, and phrasal fragments, while controlling for phrase and substring frequencies. Chunk meaningfulness, as assessed by a separate subjective rating study, was found to speed up decision times for all three types of strings: The more meaningful a multiword sequence was judged to be, the faster it was processed, independently of whether it was idiomatic, compositional in nature, or a phrasal fragment. These results highlight the importance of taking meaning into account when considering the processing of multiword chunks, consistent with predictions of construction-based approaches to language.
虽然越来越多的研究表明，成人和儿童都对高频出现的词序列敏感，但对于多词片段处理中意义的潜在作用知之甚少。在这里，我们首先评估了多词序列处理中意义的贡献，使用了在词块意义上有所不同的项目。在短语决策研究中，我们比较了三种三词序列的反应时间，这些序列对应于习语表达、组合短语和短语片段，同时控制了短语和子字符串的频率。通过单独的主观评价研究评估的词块意义，发现所有三种类型的字符串的决策时间都会加快：多词序列被判断为越有意义，处理速度就越快，而与它是否是习语、组合性质或短语片段无关。这些结果强调了在考虑多词词块处理时考虑意义的重要性，与基于构建的语言处理方法的预测一致。
