Frame-shifting instead of incongruity is necessary for pun comprehension: evidence from an ERP study on Chinese homophone puns

Recent psycholinguistic research has made significant progress in understanding the meaning-access process during pun comprehension. However, to date, little research has directly investigated how the two retrieved meanings are integrated into the pun context afterwards. In the current ERP study, we examined this process by comparing homophone puns with two control conditions. Different from previous ERP studies on jokes, we did not observe significantly enhanced N400 amplitudes (300-500 ms) in the pun condition, indicating no apparent detection of incongruity. However, we observed a sustained positivity around the left anterior regions (500-900 ms) and enhanced LPC amplitudes around the central-parietal regions (600-900 ms). These two components could index the sudden access to the second meaning and the additional integration operations to establish a new cognitive model respectively. These findings were compatible with the Space Structure Model, which emphasises the frame-shifting process as a crucial element for understanding verbal humour.

近年来，心理语言学研究在理解双关语理解过程中的意义通达机制方面取得了重要进展。然而迄今为止，鲜有研究直接探讨后续如何将检索到的两种语义整合至双关语语境之中。在本项事件相关电位（Event-Related Potential, ERP）研究中，我们通过将同音双关语与两种控制条件进行对比，对该过程展开了考察。与既往针对笑话的ERP研究不同，本研究未在双关语条件下观察到显著增强的N400波幅（300~500ms），这表明未出现明显的语义冲突检测过程。但我们在左侧前区观测到了持续时长约500~900ms的正波偏转，且在中央顶区观测到了600~900ms时段内增强的晚正成分（Late Positive Component, LPC）波幅。这两种脑电成分可分别对应于第二种语义的突发性通达，以及为建立全新认知模型所需的额外语义整合操作。上述研究结果与空间结构模型（Space Structure Model）的理论假设相符，该模型强调框架转换过程是理解言语幽默的核心环节。