Speech production is a core component of human communication, allowing
individuals to express meaning and engage with others seamlessly. This thesis
explores the mechanisms underlying language production in native Mandarin
Chinese, with a particular focus on semantic and lexico-syntactic features involved
in word production.
The investigation is structured around three key studies. First, a picture-word
interference (PWI) experiment examines the influence of animacy—a semantic
feature—on language production. Second, another PWI study investigates how the
number of overlapping semantic features affects word retrieval. Third, the thesis
explores the role of classifier distribution similarity in word production.
These questions are addressed through a combination of corpus analysis, behavioral
experiments, and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, providing a
multifaceted view of language production. The thesis also uses state-of...
Show moreSpeech production is a core component of human communication, allowing
individuals to express meaning and engage with others seamlessly. This thesis
explores the mechanisms underlying language production in native Mandarin
Chinese, with a particular focus on semantic and lexico-syntactic features involved
in word production.
The investigation is structured around three key studies. First, a picture-word
interference (PWI) experiment examines the influence of animacy—a semantic
feature—on language production. Second, another PWI study investigates how the
number of overlapping semantic features affects word retrieval. Third, the thesis
explores the role of classifier distribution similarity in word production.
These questions are addressed through a combination of corpus analysis, behavioral
experiments, and electroencephalography (EEG) measurements, providing a
multifaceted view of language production. The thesis also uses state-of-theart
statistical methodologies to analyze large-scale linguistic, behavioural, and
electrophysiological data, contributing to a comprehensive understanding of the
cognitive processes involved in Mandarin Chinese word production.
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