Charles University Prague, Prague, Czechia.
University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand.
Sci Rep. 2024 Feb 3;14(1):2844. doi: 10.1038/s41598-024-53353-0.
How do comprehenders process negative statements such as The fish is not jumping out of the water? Opinions vary. Some argue for two steps, namely that processing starts off with the representation of the positive/illusory [fish jumping out of the water] and then shifts to the (f)actual. To test this idea, we measured fixations on the factual (fish not jumping) versus the illusory (fish jumping) during auditory processing of negation and affirmation. We tested speakers of English (single-cued negation) and Croatian (double-cued negation) and focused on anticipatory fixations in the absence of pictures to indicate the strength of mental simulations. Our findings contribute to negation processing research in two ways. First, dominant anticipatory fixations on the factual suggest a direct rather than a two-step process. Second, time-sensitive insights from two languages call for a finer-grained account of negation processing with negation-specific support of inferences of the factual over the illusory.
理解者如何理解否定陈述，例如“鱼没有跳出水面”？意见不一。一些人主张分两步走，即处理过程首先从正/幻觉[鱼跳出水面]开始，然后转移到（f）实际。为了检验这个想法，我们在听觉处理否定和肯定时，测量了对事实（鱼没有跳跃）与幻觉（鱼跳跃）的注视。我们测试了讲英语（单 cue 否定）和克罗地亚语（双 cue 否定）的人，并关注在没有图片的情况下的预期注视，以表明心理模拟的强度。我们的研究结果从两个方面为否定处理研究做出了贡献。首先，对事实的主导性预期注视表明了一个直接的过程，而不是两步过程。其次，来自两种语言的时间敏感的见解要求对否定处理进行更细致的描述，并支持对实际情况的推断，而不是对幻觉的推断。
