在詞彙歧義理解上視覺目標的呈現時間效應

The Effect of Visual Target Presentation Times on Lexical Ambiguity Resolution

雖然文獻上有關詞彙歧義理解的研究很多，不過仍有一些問題尚待解決，例如為什麼在跨模式實驗中，有些實驗顯示語境會影響詞彙觸接 (i.e. Onifer and Swinney 1981) 但是有些實驗卻沒有發現語境效應 (i.e. Tabossi and Zardon 1993)。在這個研究中，我們一共執行了三個跨模式實驗，我們視覺呈現了具有歧義的中文目標，並操弄了呈現時間的長度 (300ms, 750ms, and 1500ms)，同時我們聽覺呈現了句子式語境，不過語境提示了歧義詞彙的主要語意。結果顯示當目標300 或750 毫秒視覺呈現時，主要及次要語意兩者都會激發。但是當目標在1500 毫秒視覺呈現時，只有主要語意才會激發。這個研究建議：雖然多重語意在一秒半前都會被激發，不過當視覺目標的呈現時間延長至一秒半時，語境才可以幫助多重語意的選擇。

Although lexical ambiguity resolution has been examined extensively in the sentence processing literature, questions still remain as to why some cross-modal studies found that context influenced lexical access (i.e., Onifer & Swinney 1981), while others did not (i.e., Tabossi & Zardon 1993). In this study, the length of presentation time of the visual target at the ambiguity is manipulated (300ms, 750ms, and 1500ms) in three different cross-modal experiments in Mandarin Chinese when the auditory sentential context is biased toward the primary meaning of a lexical ambiguity. Results show that both the primary and secondary meanings are activated when the target is presented for 300ms and 750ms, but that only the primary meaning is activated when the visual target is presented for 1500ms. These findings suggest that once visual presentation times extend to one and a half seconds, context aids in selection of the multiple meanings that have been accessed prior to that point.