Research On Characteristics Of Perceptual Representation In The Comprehension Of The English And Chinese Negative Sentences Under Different SOA Conditions

Understanding of sentences is an important topic in reading psychology and psycholinguistics. Researches on Negation are an important part for researching into language understanding and perceptual representation. The basic meaning of Negation is to deny something. It is an important way of denying the existence of the conceptions for describing object and the truth of some propositions when people are in the process of cognition and communication. According to the experiential-simulation Theory, B. Kaup, etc.validate the two-step simulation hypothesis by a series of studies:the representation of the negative process involves two step mental simulation: the negated state of affairs and the actual state of affairs. Comprehenders first representate the negated state of affairs and then shift attention towards the actual state of affairs later in the process of comprehension.This study investigated dynamic representation of Chinese and English negative sentences by using the isolated negative sentences and pictures for the experiment materials and piture-recognition research paradigm. Experiment 1 showed that when comprehenders read"meiyou"negative sentences in English, the advantaged effect of negated state appeared in 750ms delay conditions. The matching effect of actual state appeared in 1500ms delay conditions. Experiment 2 found that when comprehenders read"meiyou"negative sentences in Chinese, the advantaged effect of negated state appeared in 250ms delay conditions. The matching effect of actual state appeared in 750ms delay conditions.According to the results of the two experiments, the study get the following conclusions:(1) In Chinese, the representation process of"meiyou"negative sentences in English supported the two-step simulation hypothesis. (2) The representation process of"meiyou"negative sentences in Chinese supported the two-step simulation hypothesis.(3) The representation process of Double Negative and affirmative sentences in Chinese are similar is a step simulation, representing the actual state of affairs.