the role of gender information in pronoun resolution evidence from chinese的角色性别代词决议证据来自中国的信息.pdfVIP

The Role of Gender Information in Pronoun Resolution: Evidence from Chinese 1 2 3 1* Lijing Qiu , Tamara Y. Swaab , Hsuan-Chih Chen , Suiping Wang 1 Center for the Study of Applied Psychology, South China Normal University, Guangzhou, China, 2 Department of Psychology and Center for Mind and Brain, University of California Davis, Davis, California, United States of America, 3 Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China Abstract Although previous studies have consistently demonstrated that gender information is used to resolve pronouns, the mechanisms underlying the use of gender information continue to be controversial. The present study used event-related potentials (ERPs) to investigate whether working memory modulates the effect of gender information on pronoun resolution. The critical pronoun agreed or disagreed with its antecedent in gender. Moreover, the distance between a pronoun and its antecedent was varied to assess the influence of working memory. Compared with the congruent pronouns, the incongruent pronouns elicited an N400 effect in the short distance condition and a P600 effect in the long distance condition. The results suggest that the effect of gender information on pronoun comprehension is modulated by working memory. Citation: Qiu L, Swaab TY, Chen H-C, Wang S (2012) The Role of Gender Information in Pronoun Resolution: Evidence from Chinese. PLoS ONE 7(5): e36156. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0036156 Editor: Kevin Paterson, University of Leicester, United Kingdom Received November 29, 2011; Accepted March 27, 2012; Published May 16, 2012 Copyright: 2012 Qiu et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attributio