Hearing Under The Condition Of Chinese Initials, Finals And Tones In The Role Of Semantic Activation Process And Time

Chinese is a tone language; the semantic information of Chinese is attachedwith segmental information(vowel、 consonant) and also supra-segmentalinformation(tone). Although we have known the effect of the phonologicalinformation, it is not clear of the specific effect course between the two. Manyresearches of phonological coding of words were done, but there exists controversiesover the problem of cerebral hemisphere processing lateralization for the languagefunction. Based on the comprehensively theoretical and objective studies aboutspoken words of Chinese and alphabetic writing system, the present research is toinvestigate the effects and the time course of Chinese segmental information andsupra-segmental information in auditory situation by using eye movements recordingand ERP technique, analyze its source of the cerebral neural activity.Study1: The effect of Chinese bisyllable segmental information onsemantic activation in auditory situation. In experiment1\2\3\4, the purpose was toinvestigate the effect of vowel and consonant in Chinese bisyllable by using eyemovements recording.Study2: The effect of Chinese bisyllable supra-segmental information onsemantic activation in auditory situation. In experiment5and6, the purpose was toinvestigate the effect of tone in Chinese bisyllable by using eye movements recording.Study3: On pre-attentive processing, the neural mechanism of Chinese segmentalinformation and supra-segmental information on semantic activation in auditorysituation. In experiment7\8\9, the purpose was to investigate the activation patterns ofvowel/consonant and tone on pre-attentive processing by using ERP technique, andanalyzed the neural activated intensity of its source by using LORETA.Study4: On attentive processing, the neural mechanism of Chinese segmentalinformation and supra-segmental information on semantic activation in auditorysituation. In experiment10, the purpose was to investigate the activation patterns ofvowel/consonant and tone on attentive processing by using ERP technique, andanalyzed the neural activated intensity of its source by using LORETA.Based on the above studies’ results analysis and discussions, the present researchgenerally discussed the time course of Chinese segmental information andsupra-segmental information, investigated the activation patterns on differentprocessing stage. The main conclusions were drawn as follows:1. On semantic activation of Chinese bisyllable in auditory situation, when changedthe segmental information or supra-segmental information, it constraints ofsemantic activation, and the initial character changed has lager effect than last.This result supports the Cohort theory.2. In auditory situation, on the pre-attentive processing stage of Chinese vowel/consonant/tone, they all elicited MMN, and have the similar time course.3. On the stage of automatic pre-attentive processing, by using LORETA analyzed itssource, we found the right hemisphere lateralization, but Chinese consonantactivated the frontal lobe of right hemisphere, Chinese vowel and tone activatedthe occipital lobe of right hemisphere. The results support the acoustic hypothesis.4. In auditory situation, on the attentive processing stage of Chinese vowel /consonant/tone, they all elicited N400and LPC, and they have no absolutelysequence in time course; it is a parallel processing model.5. On the stage of semantic integrate processing, by using LORETA analyzed itssource, we all found the activation of left hemisphere’ occipital lobe, and alsoright hemisphere’ occipital lobe.6. We proposed the two stage model of Chinese phonological prosessing, the fiststage is happened at right hemisphere, has automatic pre-attentive processing tothe physical attribute of phonetic; and the second stage mainly happened at lefthemisphere, but also cooperate with the right hemisphere, has the integratedanalyse to the semantic in attentive processing stage. This theory integrated thefunctional hypothesis and acoustic hypothesis.