Morid Mahsa, Sabourin Laura
Department of Linguistics, University of Ottawa, 70 Laurier Ave. E. Room 413, Ottawa, ON, K1K 4H6, Canada.
J Psycholinguist Res. 2023 Dec;52(6):2321-2338. doi: 10.1007/s10936-023-10001-4. Epub 2023 Aug 10.
In this study, we asked how the emotional status, i.e., valence and arousal, and concreteness of idioms contribute to their processing. Additionally, we asked whether the contribution of emotional factors and concreteness is modulated by other linguistic constraints, specifically idiom familiarity and decomposability, that has been shown to impact idiom processing. Participants read short idiomatic phrases (e.g., he kicked the bucket), word-by-word and for comprehension while their reaction time was recorded. The results showed that the emotional status of idioms contribute to their processing and this contribution is modulated by familiarity and decomposability levels of idioms in different ways. In particular, the impact of valence (i.e., the degree an idiom is pleasant/unpleasant) was modulated by familiarity, and the impact of arousal was modulated by decomposability. We did not find strong evidence for the contribution of concreteness for idiom processing. Our findings are aligned with theories of semantic representation, which suggest that besides linguistic information, sensory-motor and affective information are fundamental in representing meaning.
在本研究中，我们探讨了习语的情感状态（即效价和唤醒度）以及具体性如何影响其加工过程。此外，我们还研究了情感因素和具体性的作用是否会受到其他语言限制的调节，特别是习语的熟悉度和可分解性，已有研究表明这些因素会影响习语的加工。参与者逐字阅读简短的习语短语（如“he kicked the bucket”）并理解其含义，同时记录他们的反应时间。结果表明，习语的情感状态对其加工有影响，且这种影响会因习语的熟悉度和可分解性水平的不同而受到不同方式的调节。具体而言，效价（即习语令人愉快/不愉快的程度）的影响受熟悉度调节，唤醒度的影响受可分解性调节。我们没有找到有力证据表明具体性对习语加工有贡献。我们的研究结果与语义表征理论一致，该理论认为，除了语言信息外，感觉运动信息和情感信息在意义表征中也至关重要。
