尽管熟悉语言会影响语音和语义在神经层面的处理方式,人们对方言的熟悉程度如何影响这些过程知之甚少。通过测量幼儿园儿童的事件相关电位(ERP),我们研究了与熟悉方言特定发音和口语单词在学校识字之前的词汇性有关的神经处理。会说两种德国方言之一的孩子们会看到口头的单词-图片配对,其中一致性(或缺乏一致性)是由方言对发音或词汇的熟悉来定义的。在与方言无关的控制对比中,一致性是由视听语义(mis)匹配定义的。通过数据驱动的地形方差分析(TANOVA)和理论驱动的焦点分析,检验了ERP中的一致性效应和方言组的一致性相互作用。融合结果显示,在两个方言组的对照对比中,N400和晚期阳性复合物(LPC)的一致性效应相似。在方言特有的词汇对比中,根据对所呈现的方言单词的熟悉程度,N400和LPC效果的地形被颠倒了。在方言特定的发音对比中,根据方言的熟悉程度,再次发现了地形逆转,然而,只为LPC。我们的数据表明,对陌生单词的神经处理,但不是发音变体,以语义处理为特征(增加的N400效应)。然而,不熟悉的单词和发音变体似乎都参与了一致性判断,如LPC效应所示。因此,方言单词发音的语义处理似乎对发音的轻微改变相当健壮,比如元音持续时间的变化,而此类更改仍可能触发后续控制过程。
Although familiarity with a language impacts how phonology and semantics are processed at the neural level, little is known how these processes are affected by familiarity with a
dialect. By measuring event-related potentials (ERPs) in kindergarten children we investigated neural processing related to familiarity with dialect-specific pronunciation and lexicality of spoken words before literacy acquisition in school. Children speaking one of two German dialects were presented with spoken word-picture pairings, in which congruity (or the lack thereof) was defined by dialect familiarity with pronunciation or vocabulary. In a
dialect-independent control contrast, congruity was defined by audio-visual semantic (mis)match. Congruity effects and congruity-by-
dialect group interactions in the ERPs were tested by data-driven topographic analyses of variance (TANOVA) and theory-driven focal analyses. Converging results revealed similar congruity effects in the N400 and late-positive-complex (LPC) in the control contrast for both dialect groups. In the dialect-specific vocabulary contrast, topographies of the N400- and LPC-effects were reversed depending on familiarity with the presented
dialect words. In the
dialect-specific pronunciation contrast, again a topography reversal was found depending on
dialect familiarity, however, only for the LPC. Our data suggest that neural processing of unfamiliar words, but not pronunciation variants, is characterized by semantic processing (increased N400-effect). However, both unfamiliar words and pronunciation variants seem to engage congruity judgment, as indicated by the LPC-effect. Thus, semantic processing of pronunciation in dialect words seems to be rather robust against slight alterations in pronunciation, like changes in vowel duration, while such alterations may still trigger subsequent control processes.