Troyer Melissa, Kutas Marta
Department of Cognitive Science, University of California, San Diego, United States of America.
Department of Neuroscience, University of California, San Diego, United States of America.
J Mem Lang. 2020 Aug;113. doi: 10.1016/j.jml.2020.104111. Epub 2020 Feb 25.
We harnessed the temporal sensitivity of event-related brain potentials (ERPs) alongside individual differences in Harry Potter (HP) knowledge to investigate the extent to which the availability and timing of information relevant for real-time written word processing are influenced by variation in domain knowledge. We manipulated meaningful (category, event) relationships between sentence fragments about HP stories and their sentence final words. During word-by-word reading, N400 amplitudes to (a) linguistically supported and (b) unsupported but meaningfully related, but not to (c) unsupported, unrelated sentence endings varied with HP domain knowledge. Single-trial analyses revealed that only the N400s to linguistically supported (but not to either type of unsupported) sentence-final words varied as a function of whether individuals knew (or could remember) the correct (supported) ending for each HP "fact." We conclude that the quick availability of information relevant for word understanding in sentences is a function of individuals' knowledge of both specific facts and the domain to which the facts belong. During written sentence processing, as domain knowledge increases, it is clearly evident that individuals can make use of the relevant knowledge systematically organized around themes, events, and categories in that domain, to the extent they have it.
我们利用事件相关脑电位(ERP)的时间敏感性以及个体在《哈利·波特》(HP)知识上的差异,来研究与实时书面文字处理相关的信息的可得性和时机在多大程度上受到领域知识差异的影响。我们操纵了关于《哈利·波特》故事的句子片段与其句末单词之间有意义的(类别、事件)关系。在逐词阅读过程中,对于(a)语言上有支持的、(b)无支持但有意义相关的,而不是对于(c)无支持、不相关的句子结尾,N400波幅随《哈利·波特》领域知识而变化。单次试验分析表明,只有对语言上有支持的(而不是对任何一种无支持的)句末单词的N400波幅会随着个体是否知道(或能记住)每个《哈利·波特》“事实”的正确(有支持的)结尾而变化。我们得出结论,句子中与单词理解相关的信息的快速可得性是个体对特定事实以及这些事实所属领域的知识的函数。在书面句子处理过程中,随着领域知识的增加,很明显个体能够在其拥有相关知识的程度上,系统地利用围绕该领域的主题、事件和类别而组织的相关知识。