关键词: 人名发音, 面孔, 形状概念, ERP

Abstract: In Previous study, we found a cross-modal mapping effect between person's name pronunciation and face shape. Participants tended to think that round lip names match round face, flat lip names match sharp face (Yan et al., 2020). However, there are mainly two different views on the formation mechanism of sound shape cross modal mapping: shared physical perceptual attributes and shared connotative attributes (Sidhu & Pexman, 2018). Considering that the pronunciation of names also contained round lip / flat lip vowels (/ o / or / i /), which had the stimulation basis to convey the concept of shape, and the face shape was also a more vivid feature of the face, there might be conceptual connection between the pronunciation of names and the face. Therefore, this study used ERP technology with high temporal resolution to reveal which stage of the cognitive processing occurs in the cross-modal correspondence effect between name pronunciation and face shape, and to explore whether there is a relationship between name pronunciation and face shape. In the ERP research conducted by Zhou et al. (2016) using the priming paradigm, music clips that can convey the concept of space (closed or open space) were used as the priming material, and pictures showing the space scene (open or closed space scene pictures) were used as the target material, so that the subjects could judge whether the target picture was an open scene or a closed scene. The results showed that music and pictures were related to the spatial concept. Inspired by this research, this study used priming paradigm and face shape judgment task (used name pronunciation as priming stimulus and face material as target stimulus) to investigate whether name pronunciation could directly initiate face shape processing. In behavior results, we found that the correct rate of the subjects under the consistent condition is significantly higher than that under the inconsistent condition, and the reaction time under the consistent condition is significantly lower than that under the inconsistent condition. In event-related potential results, we found that there was no significant experimental effect showed in the early stage of face processing indexed by P1 (occipital area) and N170 (bilateral occipitotemporal area). On the other hand, compared with the consistent condition, we found that N400 was more negative in the central -parietal region of the brain under inconsistent conditions. In summary, the behavioral and ERP results of this study consistently show that there is a relationship between the pronunciation of names and the shape concept of faces, Furthermore, there is no evidence to support that the priming effect occurs in the early stage of face processing, and there is no evidence that name pronunciation and face share physical perceptual attributes. The N400 component reflecting semantic violation presented the difference between the consistent and the inconsistent condition, which confirmed that there is a conceptual connection between the pronunciation of names and the shape of faces.