CAUSES AND CONSEQUENCES OF LEXICAL ACTIVATION

理解语言是人类最基本的认知方式之一 超能力。它在正常发展中发挥着重要作用，是一种 在许多领域获取信息的主要手段。心理语言学家 在澄清结构和流程方面取得了重大进展 这是语言理解的基础。近年来，这一点变得清晰起来。 这一领域的一个中心问题是词汇通达。理论必须具体说明 口语单词的呈现如何导致特定的词汇 表征被激活，以及这种激活的影响是什么 是：一个活跃的词汇表征对其他人有什么影响， 以及其他代表级别的单位？ 目前的提案包括一大套理论驱动的 词汇激活基础的实证检验，特别是词汇激活基础的实证检验 词汇激活的后果。这些实验使用了一系列 不同的方法，以确保正确的理论推断 通过融合操作。测试包括对上升的分析， 词汇激活的高峰和下降，以及对词汇激活的调查 积极词汇表征对他人的知觉效应 词汇表示法，以及次词汇编码。实验测试 既有兴奋性的也有抑制性的 申述。这项拟议研究的成果将是 更好地理解实现以下目标的系统架构 语言理解能力。这样的理解对我们的 理解语言处理。反过来，因为语言是这样一种 基本认知能力，描述语言加工的进展 将提高我们对人类认知的理解。

Understanding language is one of the most fundamental human cognitive abilities. It plays an important role in normal development, and is a major means for acquiring information in many domains. Psycholinguists have made significant progress in clarifying the structures and processes that underlie language comprehension. In recent years, it has become clear that a central issue in this area is lexical access. Theories must specify how the presentation of a spoken word leads to a particular lexical representation becoming activated, and what the effects of such activation are: What effect does one active lexical representation have on others, and on units at other levels of representation? The current proposal includes a large set of theoretically-driven empirical tests of the basis of lexical activation, and especially, of the consequences of lexical activation. The experiments use a range of different methodologies, in order to assure correct theoretical inferences through converging operations. The tests include analyses of the rise, peak, and fall of lexical activations, and investigations of the perceptual effect that active lexical representations can have on other lexical representations, and on sublexical encoding. The experiments test for both excitatory and inhibitory influences on these other representations. The product of the proposed research will be a much better understanding of the architecture of the system that accomplishes language comprehension. Such an understanding is critical to our understanding language processing. In turn, because language is such a fundamental cognitive ability, progress in describing language processing will enhance our understanding of human cognition.