Words Jump-Start Vision: A Label Advantage in Object Recognition
Words Jump-Start Vision: A Label Advantage in Object Recognition
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DOI：
10.1523/jneurosci.5111-14.2015
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发表时间：
2015-06-24
影响因子：
5.3
通讯作者：
Lupyan, Gary
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Boutonnet, Bastien;Lupyan, Gary
人们用语言以高度灵活的方式塑造彼此的行为。语言的影响通常被认为是“高层次的”，因为语言明显影响推理，决策和记忆，但它不会影响低层次的视觉过程。在这里，我们测试的预测，文字能够提供自上而下的指导，在视觉处理的最早阶段，作为强大的分类线索。我们调查了在听到熟悉的动物和人工制品的名字后，它们的视觉处理是否得到了增强（例如，“狗”）与听到同样熟悉和明确的非语言声音（例如，狗叫声）的实验结果。因为单词和它们的参照物之间的关系是分类的，所以我们希望单词能够部署更有效的分类模板，从而实现更快速的视觉识别。通过记录脑电图，我们能够确定这种标签优势是否源于早期视觉处理或后期语义决策过程的变化。结果表明，听到一个词会影响早期的视觉过程，这种调制是特定于命名类别的。一项对事件相关电位的分析表明，当人们被标签提示时，与同样信息丰富的非语言提示相比，P1更大--图像开始后100毫秒内发生的增强，这也预测了近500毫秒后发生的行为反应。听觉标签调制P1，使其能够区分目标和非目标图像，这表明单词可以快速引导早期视觉处理。
People use language to shape each other's behavior in highly flexible ways. Effects of language are often assumed to be "high-level" in that, whereas language clearly influences reasoning, decision making, and memory, it does not influence low-level visual processes. Here, we test the prediction that words are able to provide top-down guidance at the very earliest stages of visual processing by acting as powerful categorical cues. We investigated whether visual processing of images of familiar animals and artifacts was enhanced after hearing their name (e.g., "dog") compared with hearing an equally familiar and unambiguous nonverbal sound (e.g., a dog bark) in 14 English monolingual speakers. Because the relationship between words and their referents is categorical, we expected words to deploy more effective categorical templates, allowing for more rapid visual recognition. By recording EEGs, we were able to determine whether this label advantage stemmed from changes to early visual processing or later semantic decision processes. The results showed that hearing a word affected early visual processes and that this modulation was specific to the named category. An analysis of ERPs showed that the P1 was larger when people were cued by labels compared with equally informative nonverbal cues-an enhancement occurring within 100 ms of image onset, which also predicted behavioral responses occurring almost 500 ms later. Hearing labels modulated the P1 such that it distinguished between target and nontarget images, showing that words rapidly guide early visual processing.