The Body-object Interaction Effect In L2 Nouns Processing

The present research probes into the effect of body-object interaction in second language learners’ semantic processing of nouns.In this study,through QPT test 2,we select 40 advanced English learners and 40 primary English learners as our experimental groups and 40 native English speakers as our control group.Stimuli of the present study are 24 high body-object interaction words and 24 low body-object interaction words,which are chosen from the 1618 nouns with different body-object interaction scales from Tillotson et al.(2008).On the basis of the embodied recognition theory and models of second language lexical processing,by using E-prime 2.0 and SPSS 20.0,the facilitator of body-object interaction effect in nouns semantic processing of Chinese English learners is explored,in addition,the RTs and accuracy rate of processing high and low body-object interaction words are compared between different groups.Results indicate that: 1)Chinese English learners with different language proficiency have different processing cost when processing the same rating of body-object interaction nouns in both semantic categorization task(SCT)and semantic lexical decision task(SLDT).In SCT,RTs of the advanced English learners are shorter than that of the primary English learners,while the accuracy of the advanced English learners is higher.On the contrary,in SLDT,RTs and accuracy of the advanced learners are longer and higher respectively than those of the primary English learner;2)Body-object interaction effect can promote the semantic processing of nouns for both Chinese English learners and native English speakers,RTs and accuracy of high body-object interaction nouns are shorter and higher respectively than those of low body-object interaction nouns;3)Native English speakers have shorter response latencies and higher accuracy for both high body-object interaction nouns and low body-object interaction nouns in these two tasks.The distinguish results between the advanced English learners and the primary English learners are analyzed.Firstly,Chinese English learners’ lexical semantic representation ability and cognitive ability are affected by their language ability,thus in SCT,the primary English learners have a higher processing cost than that of the advanced English learners.Secondly,RTs and accuracy for the advanced learners are longer and higher respectively than those of the primary English learner in SLDT,which is affected by decision-related task,executive and other factors.Thirdly,body-object interaction effect to Chinese English learners are affected by the cognitive factors in lexical development model,lexical processing model and the activation of human brain.Fourthly,high body-object interaction words have rich sensorimotor information that can promote the feedback activation in words’ visual cognition,and then facilitate words’ processing.