| Linguists divide nouns into proper nouns and common nouns according to their content.The difference between the two types of words is mainly reflected in their respective semantic status:the common noun refers to "category",and all of its referents share semantic(meaning)features,while the proper noun is the name of a specific person or object in a specific class,which directly refers to an individual(Kripke,1980).A large number of studies have explored the processing characteristics of common nouns using various techniques,while proper nouns have received less attention.Proper noun types include proper name,landmark name,geographical name,trademark name,loanwords and so on.At present,the processing characteristics of proper nouns are still in the exploratory stage,such as the division of labor and cooperation between the two hemispheres of the brain,recognition and segmentation during reading,and whether there are differences between different types of proper nouns.In alphabetic languages,proper nouns and common nouns processing differences are inevitable orthographic rules on its cause(such as the first letter of proper nouns are capital).For Chinese,there is no difference between the two classes of words,so the processing differences were due to the differences of semantic status.Semantic status is the most significant difference between proper nouns and common nouns and attracts the most attention of researchers.It is a natural advantage to explore the processing characteristics of proper nouns in Chinese,but few studies have paid attention to it.In view of the semantic characteristics of proper nouns and common nouns,the present study used three studies to explore the differences between proper nouns and common nouns in Chinese :(1)brain lateralization in word recognition;(2)the ability to process as a whole in reading;(3)weighted effect size of N+2 previewing effect.In the first study,we investigated whether the brain lateralization pattern of proper nouns was consistent with that of common nouns,exploring the neural mechanism of proper nouns processing,namely,the division of labor and cooperation between left and right brains.This study included experiment 1 and experiment 2.In experiment 1,we used the half-field velocimetry technique to explore the difference of brain lateralization between two-word proper nouns and common nouns.The stimulus materials included four categories of proper nouns(names of people,landmarks,countries,and trademarks)and four categories of common nouns(names of animals,fruits/vegetables,tools,and abstract nouns),as well as artificial words based on the rest of the candidate words in each category.The participants were asked to judge whether the target words randomly presented in the left or right visual field were reasonable and meaningful true words.The results showed that :(1)the accuracy of left hemisphere was higher than that of right hemisphere;(2)The correct rate of common nouns is higher than that of proper nouns;(3)The interaction between field ×(common noun and proper noun)was significant,which showed that proper nouns had no significant difference in the two fields,while common nouns had significant difference in the two fields(the left hemisphere had higher accuracy);(4)The processing difficulty of the four types of proper nouns from difficult to easy was about: trademark = name > Landmark > Country name.In experiment 2,the brain lateralization effect of three-character proper nouns and common nouns was studied using the same paradigm.The type of stimulus and task were consistent with experiment 1.The results showed that :(1)the accuracy of left hemisphere was higher than that of right hemisphere,and the reaction time was shorter;(2)There was no significant difference in the correct rate and response time between proper nouns and common nouns;(3)The interaction of field ×(common noun and proper noun)was significant in response time,and marginally significant in accuracy,which showed that the difference of proper noun in the two fields was smaller than that of common noun in the two fields.(4)The processing difficulty of the four types of proper nouns ranges from difficult to easy: trademark > landmark > name >country name.The second study aimed to investigate the processing ability of different types of proper nouns as a whole in reading.In this study,the boundary paradigm of eye movement technique was used to divide three-character proper nouns into two parts(1+2 structure or 2+1 structure),and to manipulate the consistency of the two parts(N+1 and N+2)in the parafovea orthogonally.There were four previewing conditions: N+1 and N+2 were both consistent;N+1 was consistent,N+2was inconsistent;N+1 was inconsistent,N+2 was consistent;N+1 and N+2 were both inconsistent.This study included 6 experiments from Experiment 3 to Experiment 8.In experiment 3,the processing of the second part of the name in the parafovea was investigated.The name materials were all 1+2 structures of "A+BB",and the participants were asked to read the sentences on the screen normally.The results showed that :(1)the main effect of N+1 on the region of interest was significant,and the duration of fixation was shorter and the probability of fixation was lower in the consistent condition than in the inconsistent condition.The N+2 main effect had a significant difference in fixation duration,and the fixation duration was shorter in consistent condition than in inconsistent condition.N+1×N+2 interaction is significant(except regression probability),indicating that when N+1 was consistent,the N+2 consistency difference was significant,and when N+1 was inconsistent,the N+2 consistency difference was not significant.(2)The main effect of N+1 and N+2 on the region of interest was significant,and the fixation duration was shorter and the fixation probability was lower in the consistent condition than in the inconsistent condition.The N+1×N+2 interaction was significant(except for the skip rate),indicating that the N+2 previewing effect was larger when N+1 was consistent than when N+1 was inconsistent.In experiment 4,the processing of the second part of place names in the parafovea was discussed.The toponym materials were all 2+1 structures of "AA+B",and the task requirements were consistent with experiment 3.The results showed that :(1)the main effects of N+1 and N+2 in the region of interest(ROI)were consistent with those of experiment 3;The N+1×N+2 interaction was significant in all the fixation time indicators,and the pattern was consistent with experiment3’s results in this region of interest.(2)In the region of interest(ROI)N+2,the N+1 main effect was not significant except for the regression probability.N+2 main effect was significant in all indexes(or marginal significant).The interaction of N+1×N+2 was significant,and the pattern was consistent with that of the region of interest N+1.In Experiment 5 and 6,the processing of trade names of 1+2 structure and 2+1 structure in the parafovea was investigated.In experiment 5,a product named material with 1+2 structure was used.The results showed that :(1)in the region of interest N+1,the results were consistent with those in experiment 4;(2)The main effects of N+1 and N+2 were consistent with those of Experiment 3 in the region of interest(ROI).N+1×N+2 interaction was significant,and the pattern was similar to experiment 3 in this region of interest.In experiment 6,2+1 structure trademark named materials were used.The results showed that :(1)in the region of interest(ROI),the N+1main effect was significant,and the fixation duration was shorter and the fixation probability was lower in consistent condition than in inconsistent condition.N+2 main effect was not significant.N+1×N+2 interaction was significant in the fixation durations,and the pattern was consistent with experiment 3’s results in the same region of interest.(2)The main effect of N+1 was not significant in the region of interest N+2(except for the regression probability);N+2 main effect was not significant(except skip read rate).N+1×N+2 interaction was not significant.In experiments 7 and 8,the processing of loanwords in 1+2 structure and 2+1 structure was investigated.In experiment 7,loanwords with 1+2 structure were used as materials.The results showed that :(1)the results in the region of interest(ROI)N+1 were consistent with those in experiment 3;(2)In the region of interest,the N+1 main effect was significant(except for single fixation time),and the N+2 main effect was significant(except for regression probability).N+1×N+2 interaction was significant,and the model was consistent with experiment 3 in this region of interest.In experiment 8,loanwords with 2+1 structure were used as materials.The results showed that :(1)the results in the region of interest(ROI)N+1 were consistent with those in experiment 4;(2)In the region of interest N+2,the main effect of N+1 was significantly different in the regression path time,skip rate and regression probability.N+2 main effect was significantly different in all indexes(or marginal significant).N+1×N+2 interaction showed significant difference(or marginal significant difference)in all indicators,which was shown as: when N+1was consistent,the N+2 consistency difference was significant;when N+1 was inconsistent,the N+2 consistency difference was not significant.In study 3,the experimental meta-analysis technique was used to expand the sample size.The purpose was to integrate the effect sizes of different materials and different words in 6 subexperiments to improve the statistical effectiveness,and to more accurately estimate the N+2prevision effect of three-character proper nouns.The results showed that :(1)in the region of interest(ROI),N+2 previewing effect exists when N+1 was consistent,but not when N+1 was inconsistent.(2)In the region of interest(ROI)N+2,N+2 previewing effect exists when N+1 was consistent;when N+1 was inconsistent,N+2 previewing effect was also found when N+2 was two words,but it did not exist when N+2 was one word.Under the experimental conditions,the following conclusions can be drawn:(1)Chinese proper nouns and common nouns have a typical left-hemisphere lateralization advantage in lexical processing.(2)Proper nouns and common nouns are processed separately in the left and right hemispheres of the brain,and the right hemispheres promote proper nouns to some extent;(3)N+2(the last two words or the last word)previewing effect is significant and stable when Chinese three-character proper nouns are used as previewing words in the parafovea.(4)There are differences in processing difficulty among different types of proper nouns,and the performance of product names in word recognition and sentence reading is worse than that of other proper noun types. |
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