The Influence Of Words' Cultural Properties On Semantic Knowledge Categorization

Taxonomic category and thematic category are considered as the basic principle of semantic knowledge processing which is influenced by individuals' cultural experience.However,semantic knowledge carries different cultural properties,those highly related with traditio nal festivals,cultural custom and so on represent typical cultural characteristics,while other highly related with daily living things represent little cultural characteristics.And whether there is an interaction between individuals' cultural experience and cultural properties of semantic knowledge in the process of information cognition is unknown.Therefore,the current study was conducted to examine the influence on taxonomic category and thematic category when cultural property of semantic knowledge is irrelevant,consistent and inconsistent with individuals' cultural experience.Study 1 explored the influence of words' cultural properties on the way of semantic knowledge categorization.Words are presented through word triads,and participants are free to choose either taxonomic categories or thematic categories.40 participants(20 Han Ethnic,20 Hui Ethnic)involved in experiment 1 which was conducted to reveal the semantic knowledge categor ization of irrelevant and consistent information under the condition of free-decision.The results showed that participants tended to select thematic categories on both words materials.In the process of consistent material,they showed a stronger tendency of thematic categories.In order to further explore the mental processing characteristics of semantic knowledge categorization,experiment 2 adopted eye movement research paradigm to investigate the eye movement characteristics of taxonomic categorizing and thematic categorizing on irrelevant,consistent and inconsistent words materials,which can reveal the attention of semantic knowledge.38 participants(19 Han Ethnic,19 Hui Ethnic)involved in experiment 2.The behavioral results were almost similar to that of experiment 1,while the results of inconsistent words showed that Han participants do not show a preferred tendency while Hui participants still preferred thematic categories in processing inconsistent material.Eye movement data showed that both Hui and Han participants have more average fixation count and average dwell time compared to that of irrelevant and inconsistent words.The type of categorization is not completely accordant with the area that get more attention,which indicates that the different influence of cultural properties of sema ntic knowledge on taxonomic concepts and thematic concepts processing.Study 2 was conducted to explore the ERPs of taxonomic concepts and thematic concepts processing.Previous studies showed that the difference of sema ntic categorization is relevant to the different activation of concepts,therefore,study 2 adopted semantic priming paradigm to examine the influence of cultural properties on unrelated concepts,thematic concepts and taxonomic concepts.Two experiments were included in the study 2.The results of experiment 3 showed that there is an evident semantic priming effect(lower reaction time and higher accuracy)of thematic concepts and taxonomic concepts of Han participants under the processing of irrelevant and consistent words,but no significant difference between three kinds concepts under inconsistent words.While,Hui participants showed a sema ntic priming effect of thematic concepts in all three kind of words.Experiment 4 examined the N400 effect of unrelated concepts,thematic concepts and taxonomic concepts processing under different cultural words.The results showed that unrelated concepts elicited a more negative N400 and no difference between thematic concepts and taxonomic concepts under irrelevant information.Under the consistent information,there was no similar statistic so that we cannot summarize general results.Under the inconsistent information,unrelated concepts and thematic concepts elicited a more negative N400 when compared to taxonomic concepts,and inconsistent information made the processing of unrelated concepts and thematic concepts may be more complex.Based on the analyzing and discussing of the results above,such conclusion can be made:(1)Individuals prefer thematic categories in the processing of sema ntic knowledge,and consistent information further promotes this categorization.In the process of inconsistent information,the sema ntic information categorization is related to the difficulty of thematic concepts and taxonomic concepts processing.(2)There is an evident semantic priming effect of taxonomic concepts and thematic concepts under the process of irrelevant information and consistent information,and no difference between them.The cognition of concepts is relevant to the activation of proper cues in the process of inconsistent information.(3)N400 is effective in distinguishing the processing of taxonomic concepts or thematic concepts with unrelated concepts,not the taxonomic concepts with thematic concepts.In the process of inconsistent information,the difference of taxonomic concepts and thematic concepts is supported by the N400 effect.The present studies explored the influence of cultural properties on semantic knowledge categorization,and found that the cultural properties of concepts not only influenced the type of categorization,i.e.taxonomic categories and thematic categories,and also the cognition of taxonomic concepts and thematic concepts.Differences in taxonomic and thematic concept processing under different cultural properties are supported by ERP data,which provided a new evidence of the different neural basis of taxonomic concepts and thematic concepts.