本研究目前主要是使用跨顱磁刺激以探討左側下部頂葉皮質（left inferior parietal lobule，l-IPL）以及左側上部頂葉皮質(left superior parietal lobule，l-SPL)，而我們預期這兩個區域應與中文語音處理歷程相關，並以中文規則性效果做為語音處理的指標。從過去的研究中，當受試者被要求唸出一個不規則字(音旁與單字本身發音不一致)時相較於一個規則字(音旁與單字發音相同)會變得比較慢。我們預期當跨顱磁刺激會影響到腦區的活動，進而影響規則性效果的形態。實驗一、二、三皆是以唸名作業的方式進行並以跨顱磁刺激施打於l-IPL以及l-SPL。在這些不同跨顱磁刺激典範中，不論跨顱磁刺激施打的區域皆未影響到規則性效果的產生。然而在給予跨顱磁刺激後，在反應時間的表現上，l-IPL以及l-SPL的反應並非是完全相同的。當跨顱磁刺激施打於l-IPL後受試者的表現相較於施打於l-SPL會變得較慢。在實驗四則是以適應典範(adaptation paradigm)來進行語音處理的探討。實驗結果顯示，即使是非作業相關的刺激，這些刺激的規則性仍然會影響到接下來受試者在規則性判斷作業的表現。 目前初步的結果顯示，在l-IPL以及l-SPL的功能上並不是完全相同。但從反應時間上確實可見當跨顱磁刺激施打於l-IPL相較於跨顱磁刺激施打於l-SPL，其整體的反應時間會變慢。所以，可見跨顱磁刺激對於l-IPL以及l-SPL的影響是不一樣的。在適應典範的實驗上，發現正式作業的反應時間會受到前一階段與作業無關刺激的規則性所影響。從目前的結果推測未來的研究可以利用適應典範並結合跨顱磁刺激，以嘗試區分出l-IPL以及l-SPL在中文語音處理上的功能。Four experiments were carried out to examine the functional roles of left inferior/superior parietal lobule in Chinese phonological processing with Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) and the manipulation of the regularity of Chinese regularity. Previous studies have demonstrated that naming irregular Chinese character (i.e.: the pronunciation of phonological radical is different from the whole character) takes longer response time than naming the regular characters (phonological radical share the same pronunciation with whole character). We expected that the TMS would change the pattern of regularity effect. Experiments 1, 2, 3 were naming tasks and TMS applied over inferior/superior parietal lobule. Several TMS protocols were applied across the experiments. The regularity effects of Chinese characters were all observed across the exps. However, the overall reaction times of characters- naming in IPL TMS were slower than SPL TMS. In experiment 4, we used an adaptation paradigm to explore the Chinese phonological processing. The result showed that the regularity of task-unrelated stimulus affected the performance in regularity judgment task. The preliminary results suggest that the function of IPL and SPL in the processing of the Chinese characters are not identical. The regularity effects were modified in the adaptation paradigm but not in the naming task. Our results suggest that the adaptation task with TMS can possibly further discriminate the functions of IPL and SPL in Chinese character processing (Cattaneo et al., 2009 ).
