再探語意預視效應：中文雙字詞處理

Abstract

本研究探討中文讀者對於中文雙字詞的早期語意處理，特別要探討的是中文讀者是否能在凝視一個中文雙字複合詞之前，即可提取該詞的語意資訊。在中文的閱讀研究中曾經發現單字的語意資訊可以在該單字被凝視之前提取，不論是成詞的單字或是多字詞其中的組成單字。也有證據顯示中文雙字詞或雙字複合詞呈現在中央視野時的處理方式是整詞處理。由於事實上就詞長來看，雙字詞的詞類數量為中文詞類的最大宗，也是最常被使用的詞類，因此中文雙字詞語意處理的時間歷程便是本研究的研究目標。\n 實驗一旨在檢視雙字詞的語意資訊是否能和單字一樣，在被凝視之前即被提取。本實驗採用邊界典範（Boundary paradigm, Rayner, 1975），除了目標詞預視（identical preview）之外，本實驗亦包含語意相關預視（semantic-related preview）、語意無關預視（semantic-unrelated preview）及非詞預視（nonword preview）。實驗發現語意相關預視能促進目標詞的處理。然而和預視空間（preview space）及預視時間（preview time）的交互作用則顯示語意預視效益（benefit）在預視空間較大的時候會隨著預視時間拉長而增加，在預視空間較小的時候，則會隨著預視時間漸減。\n 在實驗一中，語意關聯性的高低和該詞合理性（plausibility）的高低是共變的，因此這兩個要素構成一個混淆的因子。語意相關預視和語意無關預視之間的效果有可能來自語意關聯性的差異，或是來自在句中合理性的差異。合理性同時也能解釋在為何在實驗一中，不合理的語意無關預視在目標前詞（pretarget）上造成較短的閱讀時間。為了解決這項混淆的因子，實驗二因此採用對目標詞預視、語意相關預視、及語意無關預視都合理的句子。結果發現，語意預視的主要效果消失。然而交互作用的模式則顯示出，語意預視效益在較長的預視時間、較大的預視空間下仍會存在。但在較小的預視空間下，會隨著較長的預視時間而轉為耗損（cost）。實驗二的結果因此提供證據支持在沒有合理性的交互作用下，中文雙字詞的語意預視效應仍會發生。最後，兩個實驗的差異顯示在中文閱讀中存在合理性的預視效益，此結論和之前中文閱讀的研究結果一致。

The present study investigates the early semantic processing of Chinese two-character words by Chinese readers. Specifically, whether Chinese readers are able to extract semantic information of an up-coming two-character compound as a whole when the word is yet being fixated. In Chinese, it has been demonstrated that semantic information can be extracted from a single character, whether it is a word or part of a word, before the character is being fixated. There is also evidence for whole word processing of foveally presented two-character compounds/words. Since two-character words actually constitute the majority of word type and are used most frequently in total, the time course of processing the meaning of such combination of characters during reading is then the goal of this study. \n The first experiment aimed to examine whether semantic information of a two-character word can be extracted before it is fixated, as what have been found for single characters. Boundary paradigm (Rayner, 1975) was used, with identical, semantic-related, and semantic-unrelated words, as well as nonwords as preview. Semantic-related preview did facilitate target word processing. The interaction pattern of the effects with preview space and preview time, however, showed that semantic preview benefit could increase with preview time with small preview space, but decrease with preview time under large preview space.\n A possible confounding factor in the first experiment was the overlap between semantic relatedness and plausibility. The effect between semantic-related and semantic-unrelated previews could be of semantic or plausibility nature. Plausibility may also explain the shortened fixation duration found in Experiment 1 when implausible semantic-unrelated preview was presented parafoveally. Experiment 2 then solved this confounding by using sentence frames which are plausible for identical, semantic-related, and semantic-unrelated previews. In Experiment 2, main effect of semantic preview benefit disappeared, while the interaction patterns showed that such benefit existed for large preview space with long preview time, but became cost for small preview space with long preview time. The results of Experiment 2 thus provide evidence for semantic preview effect of Chinese two-character words without the interaction with plausibility. Finally, the discrepancies between the two experiments indicate the existence of plausibility preview benefit, which previous studies have suggested to exist in Chinese.