An ERP Study on the Semantic Processing Mechanism of the Antecedent of Chinese Counterfactual Conditionals
Employing ERP technology,this study investigates the semantic processing mechanism underlying the antecedent of Chinese counterfactual conditionals,via manipulating the degree of consistency between contextual infor-mation and semantic information in Chinese counterfactual conditionals and causal conditionals.The results showed that:1)at the departure point of the conditionals,as a hypothetical conjunctive,"yaoshi"evoked larger P3a and P600 respon-ses than"yinwei";2)verbs inconsistent with context incurred a larger P600 amplitude;3)at the end of the antecedent,in contrast to the effect of easing integration of the consistent noun in causal conditionals,no N400 difference between consistent and inconsistent nouns in counterfactual conditionals was observed.These results reveal that the processing of semantic information in the antecedent of Chinese counterfactual conditionals could be separated into three stages:First-ly,as a counterfactual ingredient,the hypothetical conjunctive"yaoshi"triggeres the construction of counterfactual con-text.In turn,the readers construct and process the counterfactual representation.Subsequently,the readers construct the factual representation and process the counterfactual representation and the factual representation simultaneously.Our research supports and expands the dual-representation accounts for counterfactuals.
Chinese counterfactual conditionalsthe antecedent of conditionalsprocessing mechanismdual representationEEG/ERP
万方数据
维普
