Center for the Cognitive Science of Language, Beijing Culture and Language University, No.15 Xueyuan Road Haidian District, Beijing, China.
School of Forejgn Languages, Beijing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics, Beijing, China.
Acta Psychol (Amst). 2024 Sep;249:104443. doi: 10.1016/j.actpsy.2024.104443. Epub 2024 Aug 12.
The "embodied" position on language comprehension proposes that metaphor or metonymy understanding can be represented in a distributed network based on previous sensorimotor experience. The current study attempted to investigate how children understood metaphor and metonymy in the context of daily diet that provided rich sensory experience for children. We implemented an eye-tracking experiment where a 2 × 2 × 2 mixed design was employed. Thirty Chinese pupils aged from 6 to 12 were instructed to appreciate Chinese menus denoting metaphorical or metonymic expressions. Results of eye-tracking indicated that the dish images captioned with metaphorical names held the greatest attention of pupils, particularly for the juniors. Moreover, the inclusion of Chinese pinyin in the menu served as a distractor that reduced pupils' attention to other menu elements. This study adds to the state of the art on the embodied account of language by inspecting how the under-explored children perceived metaphorical and metonymic expressions. The context of everyday diet, abundant in sensory, provides a more vivid scenario for this topic. It also offers a practical insight into how to design menus to invoke particular sensory experience for children who are undergoing both physical and mental development.
语言理解的“具身”观点认为，隐喻或转喻的理解可以基于先前的感觉运动经验在分布式网络中得到表示。本研究试图探讨儿童如何在日常饮食的背景下理解隐喻和转喻，因为日常饮食为儿童提供了丰富的感官体验。我们实施了一项眼动实验，采用 2×2×2 混合设计。30 名 6 至 12 岁的中国小学生被要求欣赏用中文标注的隐喻或转喻表达的中文菜单。眼动追踪的结果表明，用隐喻性名称标注的菜肴图像最能吸引小学生的注意力，尤其是低年级学生。此外，菜单中包含的汉语拼音会分散学生对其他菜单元素的注意力。本研究通过考察鲜少被研究的儿童如何感知隐喻和转喻表达，为语言的具身观点增添了新的认识。日常饮食的丰富感官体验为这个主题提供了一个更生动的场景。它还为如何设计菜单以唤起正在身心发展的儿童的特定感官体验提供了实际的见解。
