"Before" and "after": Investigating the relationship between temporal connectives and chronological ordering using event-related potentials.
"Before" and "after": Investigating the relationship between temporal connectives and chronological ordering using event-related potentials.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1371/journal.pone.0175199
复制
发表时间：
2017
期刊：
影响因子：
3.7
通讯作者：
Almeida D
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Politzer-Ahles S;Xiang M;Almeida D
句子--以之前开头的时态从句，如“在科学家提交论文之前，期刊改变了其政策”，与以“科学家提交论文后，期刊改变了其政策”等最相似的时态从句相比，更能引发持续的负向大脑电位。这种影响可能是由两个潜在原因中的一个造成的：之前的从句可能比之后的从句更难，因为它们导致句子中的两个事件以与它们实际发生的顺序相反的顺序被提及，或者它们可能更难，因为它们对于从句中描述的事件是否实际发生不明确。本研究考察了之前和之后从句在句首语境和句末语境中对句子加工的影响(“该杂志在科学家提交论文之前/之后改变了其策略”)，其中对持续否定的提及顺序解释预测了之后相对于之前的否定。确实存在这样的反转，在句首从句中，之前引发的负脑电位比在句首从句中引发的更多，而在句末从句中则是更积极的。研究结果表明，持续负性表征了与理解失序事件相关的加工成本。
Sentence-initial temporal clauses headed by before, as in "Before the scientist submitted the paper, the journal changed its policy", have been shown to elicit sustained negative-going brain potentials compared to maximally similar clauses headed by after, as in "After the scientist submitted the paper, the journal changed its policy". Such effects may be due to either one of two potential causes: before clauses may be more difficult than after clauses because they cause the two events in the sentence to be mentioned in an order opposite the order in which they actually occurred, or they may be more difficult because they are ambiguous with regard to whether the event described in the clause actually happened. The present study examined the effect of before and after clauses on sentence processing in both sentence-initial contexts, like those above, and in sentence-final contexts ("The journal changed its policy before/after the scientist submitted the paper"), where an order-of-mention account of the sustained negativity predicts a negativity for after relative to before. There was indeed such a reversal, with before eliciting more negative brain potentials than after in sentence-initial clauses but more positive in sentence-final clauses. The results suggest that the sustained negativity indexes processing costs related to comprehending events that were mentioned out of order.