Kyriacou Marianna, Conklin Kathy, Thompson Dominic
School of English, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2021 Aug 2;12:675046. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.675046. eCollection 2021.
The literature on idioms often talks about an "idiom advantage," such that familiar idioms () are generally processed faster than comparable literal phrases (). More recently, researchers have explored the processing of idiom modification and while a few studies indicate that familiarity benefits the processing of modified forms, the extent of this facilitation is unknown. In an eye-tracking study, we explored whether familiar idioms and modified versions with 1 or 2 adjectives { } are processed faster than matched literal phrases {} when both were preceded by a biasing context. The results showed that adjectives inserted in idioms induced longer fixations and were more likely to elicit a regression. However, idiom verbs and final words were processed with the same ease in all adjective conditions, implying that modifying idioms did not impede their processing. In contrast to the widely reported "idiom advantage," the results demonstrated that canonical and modified idioms were to read relative to matched literal controls. This was taken to reflect the competition between an idiom's literal and figurative meaning, and subsequently the need to select and integrate the contextually appropriate one. In contrast, meaning integration in literal, unambiguous phrases was easier. We argue that processing costs associated with meaning selection may only manifest when idioms are preceded by a biasing context that allows disambiguation to occur in the idiom region, and/or when literal control phrases are contextually appropriate and carefully matched to idioms. Thus, idiom recognition/activation may elicit the well attested idiom advantage, while meaning selection and integration may come at a cost, and idiom modifications may simply add to the cognitive load.
关于习语的文献常常提及“习语优势”，即常见习语（ ）通常比相应的字面短语（ ）处理得更快。最近，研究人员探讨了习语修饰的处理过程，虽然一些研究表明熟悉度有利于修饰形式的处理，但这种促进作用的程度尚不清楚。在一项眼动追踪研究中，我们探究了在有偏向性语境的情况下，常见习语以及带有1个或2个形容词的修饰版本（ ）是否比匹配的字面短语（ ）处理得更快。结果显示，插入习语中的形容词会导致更长的注视时间，并且更有可能引发回视。然而，在所有形容词条件下，习语动词和最后一个单词的处理难易程度相同，这意味着修饰习语并不会妨碍其处理。与广泛报道的“习语优势”相反，结果表明相对于匹配的字面控制短语，规范的和修饰后的习语阅读起来更 。这被认为反映了习语字面意义和比喻意义之间的竞争，以及随后选择和整合上下文合适意义的必要性。相比之下，字面的、明确的短语的意义整合更容易。我们认为，与意义选择相关的处理成本可能只有在习语之前有一个允许在习语区域进行歧义消除的偏向性语境时才会显现，和/或当字面控制短语在上下文合适且与习语仔细匹配时才会显现。因此，习语识别/激活可能会引发得到充分证实的习语优势，而意义选择和整合可能会有成本，习语修饰可能只会增加认知负担。
