The Psychological Mechanism Of Rhyme Processing In Poetry

The present study investigated the relationship between semantic and prosodic processing in written language by analyzing both behavioral and event-related potentials (ERPs) data. In the experiment, rhyming Chinese Tang poems were chosen as materials and a2x2within-subject design was adopted. The last Chinese characters in the poems were either original or substituted based on semantics and rhyming scheme, to form semantically and/or prosodically congruous and incongruous sentences.19students of Nanjing Normal University participated in the experiment, nine of them were females. The poems were presented visually segment by segment, and participants were required to decide whether the poems were semantically and prosodically congruous.ERPs data showed that:(1) In semantically congruous poem, abnormal rhyming scheme elicited a right lateralized N400-like effect in the300-to500-ms time window.(2) Semantic anomaly induced widely distributed N400in the300-to500-ms time window and late positive components in the500-to1000-ms time window. When the rhyming scheme is acceptable, the semantic incongruous poem produced a larger N400effect than the semantic congruous poem. On the contrary, the semantic congruous effect disappeared when the poem had abnormal rhyming scheme.Conclusions:(1) Rhyming scheme is used immediately during Chinese poem reading and this process is mainly finished through the right hemisphere.(2) Rhyming scheme and semantics interact in silent poem reading; violations of rhyming scheme may hinder the process of poem comprehension.