A Comparative Study On The Embodied Semantic Processing Effects Of Chinese Hand-related And Foot-related Verbs

According to embodied cognitive theory,cognitive processing is affected by the body state,and the sensorimotor system involves in the processing of language.A body of studies have carried out some research on the embodied effect of verbs showing that the processing of verbs were influenced by our physical experience.However,some studies have suggested that semantic processing does not recruit the sensory motor system if the semantics are not fully activated.Throughout the studies of Chinese verbs,there are few studies on the processing mechanism of Chinese verbs.Most of them focus on the classification of verbs,the collocation of verbs,and the grammatical functions of verbs.The processing mechanism of Chinese verbs has not been fully revealed.On the basis of previous studies and from the perspective of embodied cognitive theory,this paper explores the embodied effect of the processing of hand-related verbs and foot-related verbs in modern Chinese by using ERP experimental techniques.The specific research questions are as follows:(1)Does the processing of hand-related verbs has embodied semantic effects?(2)Does the processing of foot-related verbs has embodied semantic effects?(3)Are there any differences in the embodied semantic effect of the processing of hand-related and foot-related verbs? If so,what is the difference?This study included two experiments.Experiment one used action verb-effector consistency paradigm.Experimental materials consist of 30 pairs of words.2(verb types: hand-and foot-related verbs)× 2(response effector: hand and foot)two factor mixed design is used in the experiment.Thirty-two postgraduate students from Sichuan International Studies University were selected as subjects.They were asked to judge the truth of vocabulary,using hand-related verbs and foot-related verbs as target stimuli.In experiment two,the priming paradigm was adopted,and the mixed design of 3(priming conditions: Chinese character “?”,Chinese character “?” and error code)× 2(verb types : hand-and foot-related verbs)× 2(response effector: hand and foot)was adopted.The experiment recorded the response time and EEG data of the subjects to make judgments on the target words.The experimental process was programmed with E-prime 2.0 software.EEG data were collected,recorded and analyzed off-line by Neuroscan 4.5.The results were input into SPSS 16.0 software for statistical analysis.The whole experiment was completed in the Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Foreign Language Learning in Sichuan International Studies University.The results are as follows:(1)According to the behavioral data,under no semantic activation information condition,the response effector has a significant effect on the processing of hand-related verbs(p =.004 <.05),and the reaction time is shorter when the meaning of the verb is consistent with the effector,which means there is embodied effect in the processing of hand-related verbs.But there is no significant embodied effect in the processing of foot-related verbs.Under the semantic priming information,whether in the case of hand response or foot response,there is a significant difference in the reaction time of hand-related verbs under the condition of Chinese character word “?” and “?”.(2)EEG data showed that under the condition of no semantic priming,the processing of hand-related verbs and foot-related verbs had significant differences in index of the N400 component.The main effect of body effector is significant.In the frontal brain area,the amplitude of verbs whose meaning is inconsistent with the response effector(e.g.,hand-related verb processing performed with foot)is significantly different from the verbs whose meaning is consistent with the response effector.Under the condition of semantic priming,there was a significant interaction effect of the verb type and the priming condition in the frontal brain area,and further simple effect analysis showed that the average amplitude of the foot-related verbs was significantly larger than the average amplitude of the hand-related verbs primed with Chinese character “?”(which means hand);the amplitude of the foot-related verbs primed with “?” was significantly larger than the foot-related verbs(p <.05).In the central brain area,the interaction effect between the priming condition and the verb type was significant.Further analysis of the simple effect showed that the latency of the foot-related verbs was significantly longer than that of the hand-related verbs performed with the foot.These results indicate that the response effector or the semantic priming information had a stimulating effect on the processing of hand-related and foot-related verbs.In summary,whether there is semantic priming information,the facilitation effect of action language and effector is significant.And there are no significant different embodied semantic effects of hand-and foot-related verbs.