Embodied Cognitive Theory Approach To The Effect Of Semantic-cueing Validity Of Semantic Radical "?" On The Processing Of Hand Verbs

Researches on semantic radical of Chinese character have attracted much attention.And a large number of studies showed that,as a part of Chinese characters,semantic radical would affect the recognition of Chinese characters and the introduction of parts of speech.At present,most of the studies on the semantic radical focused on the theoretical level,and established relevant models to explain the role of semantic radical on the processing of Chinese characters.Few studies investigated how semantic radical affected the processing of Chinese characters by means of empirical research,that is,its processing mechanism.Therefore,on the basis of previous studies,from the perspective of embodied cognitive theory,we assume that semantic radical “?” can not only activate effector but also arouse the relevant experience of subjects elicited by hand,thus promoting the processing of hand verbs.In order to validate this hypothesis,this paper studied how semantic radical “?” affected the processing of Chinese hand verbs by means of ERPs techniques.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)Are there any differences in the processing of Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical under the same condition? If so,what are the differences?(2)Are there any differences in the processing of Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical under different semantic-cueing validity conditions of semantic radical “?” ? If so,what are the differences?Experiment One of the present study adopted an one factorial within subject design and Experiment Two adopted 2(verb type: Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and Chinese hand verbs without semantic radical)× 3(priming condition: low semantic-cueing validity(error code priming),medium semantic-cueing validity(Chinese character priming)and high semantic-cueing validity(picture of hand priming))two-factor within subject design.Twenty-two postgraduates majoring in English from SISU were recruited to participate in the experiments.After that,the behavioral and ERP data were discussed to investigate the effect of semantic radical on the semantic processing of Chinese hand verb.Both experiments were programmed by E-Prime 2.0.Neuroscan 4.5 and Synaps 2 were used to collect and record the behavioral and ERP data,which were analyzed offline by the statistic software SPSS 23.0.The whole experiments were made in the Key Lab of Cognitive Neuroscience & Foreign Language Learning at SISU.The experimental findings are as follows:(1)The results of behavioral data showed that there was no significant difference between Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical in the reaction time of subjects under low semantic-cueing validity priming condition: t =-.6437,p =.520;under medium semantic-cueing validity priming condition,there was a significant difference between Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical in the reaction time of subjects: t =-.2.084,p =.038,and Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical had shorter reaction time,which indicated that semantic radical promoted the processing of hand verbs under Chinese character “?” priming condition.Under the condition of high semantic-cueing validity,no significant differences were found between Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical in reaction time of subjects: p >.05,which indicated that semantic radical did not affect the processing of hand verbs under picture priming condition.In addition,the reaction time of the same type hand verbs were significant different under different semantic-cueing validity conditions: ps <.05,which indicated that semantic-cueing validity had an impact on the processing of different types of Chinese hand verbs.(2)EEG results showed that,in the parietal region,hand verbs with semantic radical evoked larger N400 amplitudes than those without semantic radical under low semantic-cueing validity priming condition(t = 2.093,p =.041).Under medium semantic-cueing validity condition,in the parietal region,the amplitude of N400 of hand verbs with semantic radical was longer than that of hand verbs without semantic radical(t = 3.096,p =.003).The result indicated that there were significant differences when subjects processing the Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical.To be specific,the semantic radical promoted the processing of Chinese hand verbs,and the parietal region might be the main brain region of the processing of semantic radical “?”.In addition,there were significant differences in N400 latency induced by same type of hand verbs under low semantic-cueing validity condition and high semantic-cueing validity condition: F(1,17)= 5.740,p =.028;Significant differences between low semantic-cueing validity condition and medium semantic-cueing validity condition in N400 amplitudes induced by same type of hand verbs were observed: F(1,17)= 6.305,p =.022.The results showed that different semantic-cueing validity conditions of semantic radical “?” had different effects on the processing of different types of Chinese hand verbs.Given all that,semantic radical “?” affects the processing of Chinese hand verbs and different semantic-cueing validity conditions of semantic radical “?” have different effects on Chinese hand verbs with semantic radical and those without semantic radical.