An ERP Study On Chinese Hand-Related Verbal Metaphor Comprehension

As one of the most essential parts of speech,the internal system of the verb is very complicated.As a common category of body verbs,hand verbs describe the most primitive and universal actions of human beings.Metaphor is the means by which people perceive the world,and human cognition starts from ourselves,so the study of hand verbs has very important cognitive significance.Hand verbs are specific action verbs performed by human hands.Apart from the most basic action meanings,other concrete or abstract meanings will be produced under the influence of metaphor.At present,the research on metaphor conducted both domestically and internationally is mainly focused on nominal metaphor,while the research on verbal metaphor needs to be further studied.In addition,there are relatively fewer studies on verbal metaphor in Chinese.Therefore,this study uses EEG technology with high time resolution to study the activation time of abstract and concrete meanings in Chinese hand-related verbal metaphor and the time course of meaning integration,which provides an empirical basis for the theory of verbal metaphor understanding.This study adopts the word-by-word presentation paradigm with ERPs recorded,employing sentence meaning judgment task,constructing four types of sentences such as subject-verb metaphorical sentences(SVM),verb-object metaphorical sentences(VOM),literal-abstract sentences(LA),literal-concrete sentences(LC).Besides,27 Chinese college students participated in this experiment,but the behavioral data and the ERP data from 25 participants were finally used in the statistical analysis.The thesis aims to address two research questions:(1)Is the processing of Chinese hand-related verbal metaphor relied on the simulation mechanism or abstract mechanism? If two mechanisms work together,at what stage are concrete and abstract meanings activated respectively?(2)Is the meaning of Chinese hand-related verbal metaphor integrated with the unfolding of sentence meaning? The study records and analyzes the electroencephalogram(EEG)data and behavioral data,and the behavioral data includes response time(RT)and accuracy.Through the analysis of EEG data,the main findings of the current study are:(1)in the verb processing stage,the N400 amplitudes induced by verbs in verb-object metaphorical sentences are similar to that in literal-concrete sentences,and the P600/LPC effect elicited by verbs in subject-verb metaphorical sentences are similar to that in literal-abstract sentences.There is no semantic conflict when participants comprehend the verb in a verb-object metaphorical sentence.Thus,the concrete meaning of the verb is activated in the first place.However,a subject-verb metaphorical sentence produces such a semantic conflict,in which the verb needs to be reanalyzed to activate a reasonable abstract meaning.The results show that the verb-object metaphor is processed through the simulation mechanism and the subject-verb metaphor is processed through the abstraction mechanism.This study confirms the view that the mechanisms of simulation and abstraction are combined in verbal metaphor understanding,that is,verbal metaphor understanding can not only activate the sensorimotor system but also obtain the metaphorical meaning through the abstraction of language processing system.At the same time,this study also confirms that the activation time of abstract and concrete meaning is determined by the position of semantic conflict.(2)When the target object is processed,both subject-verb metaphors and verb-object metaphors induce stronger P600 effects than literal sentences.When the object word occurs,both subject-verb metaphors and verb-object metaphors constitute semantic conflicts.Participants need to reanalyze the meaning of sentences in combination with the context,which reflects that the processing of metaphorical sentences consumes more cognitive resources than the processing of literal sentences.For the subject-verb metaphorical sentences,the abstract meaning of the verb is activated at the initial stage,and the semantic processing will continue until the end of the sentence.This study finds that the metaphorical meaning in verbal metaphor understanding is integrated and extracted immediately with the development of sentence meaning.(3)In addition,this study also finds that in the object processing stage,literal-concrete sentences induce greater N400 effects than the other three kinds of sentences.The reason for this result is that the N400 component is closely related to semantic processing,and concrete words activate more semantic information in memory than abstract words.In conclusion,the characteristic of simulation and abstraction mechanisms participation in Chinese hand-related verbal metaphor comprehension is explored in the current study.At the same time,this study also proves that the metaphorical meaning in verbal metaphor understanding is immediately integrated and extracted with the unfolding of the sentence meaning.Moreover,the thesis provides a reference for understanding and learning Chinese hand-related verbal metaphor.