| Embodied cognitive theory holds the view that the sensorimotor system plays a very important role in language processing.Damage to the sensorimotor system will alter participants’performance in language processing,especially in verb processing.The derivation of affordance is a necessary central link to perceive the environment.Affordance refers to the power that the environment furnishes a person with the possibility to perform a certain behavior.Some foreign studies have shown that observing an operable object will automatically activate movements that can be performed on the object,namely,affordance.However,other researches have demonstrated that the activation of affordance is not automatic,but is affected by the type of verb and the position of the object.At present,the final conclusion hasn’t been reached on this matter.Besides,most of the researches on the influence factors of affordance derivation are mainly in Indo-European languages.The related research on the factors affecting affordance derivation when Chinese native speakers process Chinese action verbs has not been fully developed.Therefore,based on previous researches,this study takes embodied cognition as theoretical foundation and adopts behavioral experiments to investigate whether affordance derivation by Chinese native speakers is affected by the type of verb,the position of the object presented and the visual angle when processing Chinese action verbs.The specific research questions are as following:（1）Under a normal visual angle condition,is the affordance derivation modulated by verb type and the location of the object in processing Chinese action verbs by Chinese native speakers?（2）Under a special visual angle condition,is the affordance derivation also modulated by verb type and the location of the object in processing Chinese action verbs by Chinese native speakers?This study contained two experiments.The experiment one adopted a 4（verb type:function verb,observation verb,function verb fillers and observation verb fillers）×2（the location of object presented:peripersonal space and extrapersonal space）×2（visual angle:normal visual angle and special visual angle）within subject design.35 students majoring in English from SISU participated in the study.In the experiment,the subjects were asked to make a judgment on whether the combination between the object and verb was appropriate.Moreover,the experimental materials were presented randomly in order to avoid the task effects.The second experiment was designed to rule out the possibility that the results of experiment one were due to a reduction in the visual saliency of the object presented when the object was far away from the participants.Thus,the near objects were phenomenally smaller than the far objects in experiment two,which was opposite to experiment one.The experiment recorded the subjects’accuracy and RTs in judging whether verb was suitable for the object presented or not by using E-prime 2.0.After excluding some invalid data（2.5 standard deviations above or below the average accuracy rate and RTs）,the remaining valid data were analyzed by statistical analysis software SPSS 16.0.The findings are as follows:（1）The behavioral data of experiment one revealed that under normal visual angle condition,the subjects had significant differences in RTs for different verb types（F=24.917,p=.000<.001）.When the object was located in the peripersonal space,subjects processed the function verbs(M PSOFV=565.48)faster than the observation verbs(M PSOOV=893.26 ms,F=26.90,p=000<.001).When the object was in the extrapersonal space,the participant also responded faster to the function verbs(M ESOFV=758.08 ms)than the observation verbs(M ESOOV=868.28 ms,F=15.03,p=000<.001).The results suggested that function verbs were more likely to induce subjects to interact with objects than observation verbs.In addition,when the positions of the object were different,the RTs of subjects were also observably different（F=15.797,p=.000<.001）.Manifested as when processing function verbs,the participants’RTs were shorter when the object was located in the peripersonal space(M PSOFV=565.48 ms)than the extrapersonal space(M ESOFV=758.08 ms,F=22.54,p=.000<.001).However,this phenomenon did not occur when the target word was observation verbs（F=3.18,p=.083>.05）.This indicated,for participants,peripersonal space made their interaction with object more possible than the extrapersonal space.Therefore,it could be seen that the process of affordance derivation was a mental simulation of whether an action could be performed in the current environment,which was affected by the type of verb and the position of the object.（2）The behavioral data of experiment two showed that under the condition of special visual angle,there was also a prominent difference in the RTs of subjects when processing diverse verb types（F=42.044,p=.000<.001）.The specific manifestation were that the participants processed function verbs(MFV=628.54)faster than observation verbs(M OV=931.86 ms),regardless of whether the object was located in peripersonal space（F=45.04,p=.000<.001）or extrapersonal space（F=28.85,p=.000<.001）.Similarly,a significant difference for participants’RTs data in response to various locations of the object presented existed,too.（F=10.969,p=.002<.01）.Specifically,although RTs to observation verbs didn’t constitute a statistically significant difference in peripersonal and extrapersonal space（F=0.18;p=.675>.05）,they were faster in peripersonal(M PSOFV=541.12 ms)than in extrapersonal space(M ESOFV=945.41 ms,F=18.27,p=.000<.001)for function verbs.The behavioral data of experiment two ruled out that the possibility of the result of experiment one could be merely accounted for by differences in the visual salience of the presented objects.In summary,when Chinese native speakers process Chinese action verbs,there is a psychological reality on affordance derivation.This derivation process is not automatically activated,but is modulated by both the type of verb and the position of object. |
PDF Full Text Request