聲調、詞頻與語境對口語詞彙處理之影響

Abstract

本研究旨在探討聲調訊息與詞頻對中文口語詞彙處理之影響，藉由研究變造過之聲調訊息，探討以下三項研究議題：(1)聲調訊息對詞彙處理之重要性為何？(2)當聲調訊息無效時，詞頻是否影響詞彙處理？(3)語意與音韻之「觸發效應」(priming effects) 是否可促進受試者對無效聲調訊息之認知？於實驗一與實驗二之詞彙判斷作業(lexical decision task)，受試者聽到語音相似之高低頻雙字詞後（例如：高頻詞「輕鬆」 與低頻詞「星空」），必須判斷所聽到之聲音是否為中文詞。其中，部分詞保留原聲調，部分則於第二音節或一二音節予已變造。實驗一與實驗二程序與內容大致相同，唯於實驗一，所有變造與未變造過之詞皆隨機出現，而實驗二之聲調訊息則逐漸遞減。結果顯示，聲調訊息於低頻詞彙處理相當重要，但高頻詞較不受變造音調之影響。實驗三運用跨形式作業(cross-modal task)以研究語意與音韻之觸發效應，而實驗四則檢驗語意與觸發詞詞頻是否會干擾音韻觸發效應。整體結果顯示，詞頻與語意顯著促進受試者對變造詞語之處理，音韻觸發效應則不顯著。

This study aimed to examine the role of tonal information and word frequency in processing spoken Mandarin lexicon. By transforming F0 information, the study intended to answer the following research questions: (1) how is tonal information important during lexical processing; (2) whether word frequency is an influential factor on lexical perception when F0 is neutralized; (3) whether semantic and phonological information facilitated word processing without valid tones. Experiment 1 used a lexical decision paradigm in which subjects were to hear high and low frequency bisyllabic word pairs whose segmental makeups were similar (e.g. [high frequency] qing1song1 ‘relaxed’ vs. [low frequency] xing1kong1 ‘starry sky’). The F0 information of the stimuli was either intact, transformed for the second syllable, or transformed for both syllables. Experiment 2 was a replication of Experiment 1, but the tonal information was gradually decreased by blocks. The results showed that tonal information is important for lexical retrieval of low frequency words but not high frequency ones. Besides, Experiment 3 used a cross-modal priming task to investigate whether the semantic and phonological primes were able to facilitate lexical processing when the F0 information was neutralized. The results indicated that semantic priming had facilitatory effects on both reaction times and accuracy, but inhibition on the reaction times was found in phonological priming. Experiment 4 was used to examine whether the inhibition of phonological priming was resulted from the interference of the lexical meanings of the primes. The result was consistent with Experiment 3. In conclusion, semantics and word frequency had robust facilitatory effects during lexical processing and tonal retrieval, yet phonological priming effects were relatively weaker.