The Influence Of Language Development On Spontaneous Trait Inference

With the development and application of contemporary technique on cognitive neuroscience,such as event-related potential(ERP),it is possible to reveal the inner law of implicit social cognition development,formulate education program and teaching strategies for children’s moral education,cultivate children’s verbal ability and perceptibility,and direct quality education.Based on the spontaneous trait inference paradigm proposed by Na et al.(2011),this study intends to investigate how the language development affects spontaneous trait inference,and explores deeply the neural mechanism of spontaneous trait inference by taking advantage of behavioral experiments and ERP.The experiment is designed with 2(group:undergraduates vs.children)×2(word type: trait vs.antonym).Record and analyze the accuracy and reaction time in the experiment.Behavioral results show that the children in primary school have obvious spontaneous trait inference effect,which significantly reflects in the reaction time,but not the accuracy;the collage students as a control group have no significant spontaneous trait inference effect on the accuracy and reaction time.However,ERP results show that both of them have spontaneous trait inference,which embodies in undergraduates induces N200 in the 300-450 ms,and the children in primary school induces N400 in the 450-600 ms.The main conclusions have been drawn as follows:1.The children in primary school and college students have spontaneous trait inference effect in the experiment.And this effect is more suitable for inspection by ERP.2.Due to the differences in cultural background and experimental materials.Therefore,the cultural differences and linguistic competence in the neural basis of spontaneous trait inference effect are demonstrated.3.There is a close relationship between language development and spontaneous trait.Undergraduates have mature linguistic competence,but the language ability of the children in primary school is developing.Therefore,the language development will promote the development of spontaneous trait inference.