关键词: 具体否定句, 隐喻否定句, 两阶段模拟加工理论, 抑制/保存假说

Abstract: The study investigated dynamic mental processing of different types of negative sentences using sentence-word decision and sentence-picture judgment tasks. Experiment 1 examined the mental process of literal negative sentences. Participants were presented with affirmative and negative sentences containing a target entity. After reading sentence, participants were presented with a picture of the target entity that was either matched or mismatched with property of the entity in the preceding sentence. The delay between sentence and word was 750ms in Experiment 1a and 1500ms in Experiment 1b. In Experiment 2, most of the procedures were same as that in Experiment 1 expect that participants read metaphorical negative and affirmative sentences and then completed word judgment tasks. The result showed that for literal negative sentences, reaction time in match condition was longer than in mismatch condition in 750ms, however in 1500ms the result was opposite. For metaphorical negative sentences, reaction time in match condition was also longer than in mismatch condition in 750ms, but there was no difference between the two conditions in 1500ms. The whole study proved the assumption that mental processes of different types of negative sentences were dynamically varied. Processing of literal negative sentences confirms to the two-stage simulating theory, while processing of metaphorical negative sentences is more accorded with suppression/preservation hypothesis.

Key words: literal negative sentence, metaphorical negative sentence, two-stage simulating theory, suppression/preservation hypothesis