Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

Currently, production and comprehension are regarded as quite distinct in accounts of language processing. In rejecting this dichotomy, we instead assert that producing and understanding are interwoven, and that this interweaving is what enables people to predict themselves and each other. We start by noting that production and comprehension are forms of action and action perception. We then consider the evidence for interweaving in action, action perception, and joint action, and explain such evidence in terms of prediction. Specifically, we assume (...) that actors construct forward models of their actions before they execute those actions, and that perceivers of others' actions covertly imitate those actions, then construct forward models of those actions. We use these accounts of action, action perception, and joint action to develop accounts of production, comprehension, and interactive language. Importantly, they incorporate well-defined levels of linguistic representation. We show how speakers and comprehenders use covert imitation and forward modeling to make predictions at these levels of representation, how they interweave production and comprehension processes, and how they use these predictions to monitor the upcoming utterances. We show how these accounts explain a range of behavioral and neuroscientific data on language processing and discuss some of the implications of our proposal. (shrink)

Our target article proposed that language production and comprehension are interwoven, with speakers making predictions of their own utterances and comprehenders making predictions of other people's utterances at different linguistic levels. Here, we respond to comments about such issues as cognitive architecture and its neural basis, learning and development, monitoring, the nature of forward models, communicative intentions, and dialogue.

This study investigated inverse preference effects in L2 structural priming of English relative clauses and their potential influences on subsequent learning of target structures. One hundred fourteen Chinese learners of English at a low-to-intermediate proficiency level participated in a structural priming experiment with a pretest-posttest design. The experimental group underwent a priming task in which they orally produced syntactic structures immediately after viewing English object or passive relative clauses as primes, whereas the control group only read sentences unrelated to English (...) relative clauses. A grammaticality judgment task and a sentence completion task were used to measure the inverse preference effect and its subsequent effects on L2 learning. The results showed the presence of structural priming and inverse preference effects in immediate production, which extended to subsequent learning of L2. In subsequent grammaticality judgments and production, L2 learners performed better with English object relative clauses than with English passive relative clauses in comparison with the pretest. The results are discussed in terms of the structural frequency in both L1 and L2 as well as the implicit learning mechanisms of structural priming. (shrink)

The implicit learning account of syntactic priming proposes that the same mechanism underlies syntactic priming and language development, providing a link between a child and adult language processing. The present experiment tested predictions of this account by comparing the persistence of syntactic priming effects in children and adults. Four‐year‐olds and adults first described transitive events after hearing transitive primes, constituting an exposure phase that established priming effects for passives. The persistence of this priming effect was measured in a test phase (...) as participants described further transitive events but no longer heard primes. Their production of passives was compared to a baseline group who described the same pictures without any exposure to primes. Neither immediate nor long‐term priming effects differed between children and adults but both children and adults showed significant immediate and persistent effects of the priming when the test phase occurred immediately after the exposure phase and when a short delay separated the exposure and test phase. The implications of these results for an implicit learning account of syntactic priming are discussed. (shrink)

What are the semantic representations that underlie language production? We use structural priming to distinguish between two competing theories. Thematic roles define semantic structure in terms of atomic units that specify event participants and are ordered with respect to each other through a hierarchy of roles. Event structures instead instantiate semantic structure as embedded sub‐predicates that impose an order on verbal arguments based on their relative positioning in these embeddings. Across two experiments, we found that priming for datives depended on (...) the degree of overlap in event structures. Specifically, while all dative structures showed priming, due to common syntax, there was a boost for compositional datives priming other compositional datives. Here, the two syntactic forms have distinct event structures. In contrast, there was no boost in priming for dative light verbs, where the two forms map onto a single event representation. On the thematic roles hypothesis, we would have expected a similar degree of priming for the two cases. Thus, our results support event structural approaches to semantic representation and not thematic roles. (shrink)

Recent studies indicate that the processing of an unexpected word is costly when the initial, disconfirmed prediction was strong. This penalty was suggested to stem from commitment to the strongly predicted word, requiring its inhibition when disconfirmed. Additional studies show that comprehenders rationally adapt their predictions in different situations. In the current study, we hypothesized that since the disconfirmation of strong predictions incurs costs, it would also trigger adaptation mechanisms influencing the processing of subsequent strong predictions. In two experiments, participants (...) made speeded congruency judgments on two-word phrases in which the first word was either highly constraining or not. We manipulated the proportion of disconfirmed predictions in highly constraining contexts between participants. The results provide additional evidence of the costs associated with the disconfirmation of strong predictions. Moreover, they show a reduction in these costs when participants experience a high proportion of disconfirmed strong predictions throughout the experiment, indicating that participants adjust the strength of their predictions when strong prediction is discouraged. We formulate a Bayesian adaptation model whereby prediction failure cost is weighted by the participant’s belief about the likelihood of encountering the expected word, and show that it accounts for the trial-by-trial data. (shrink)

Native language listeners engage in predictive processing in many processing situations and adapt their predictive processing to the statistics of the input. In contrast, second language listeners engage in predictive processing in fewer processing situations. The current study uses eye-tracking data from two experiments in bilinguals’ native language (L1) and second language (L2) to explore their predictive processing based on contrastive pitch accent cues, and their adaptation in the face of prediction errors. The results of the first experiment show inhibition (...) effects for unpredicted referents in both the L1 and the L2 that can be modeled with a Bayesian adaptation model, suggesting that bilinguals adapt their prediction in the face of prediction errors in a way that is compatible with the model. In contrast, the results of the second experiment, after a training phase that increased the predictive validity of the cue, show inhibition effects for unpredicted referents only in the L1, but not in the L2. In addition, the Bayesian adaptation model significantly predicts only the L1, but not the L2 data. The results are discussed with respect to adaptation to the statistical properties of the input. (shrink)

Clark reports on a variationist analysis of intervocalic word‐medial /t/ from recorded spontaneous speech monologues. The results provide evidence that tokens are more likely to be realized as voiced if the preceding token was voiced, an effect which is weaker with increased temporal distance between the prime and target.

Syntactic priming in language production is the increased likelihood of using a recently encountered syntactic structure. In this paper, we examine two theories of why speakers can be primed: error‐driven learning accounts (Bock, Dell, Chang, & Onishi, 2007; Chang, Dell, & Bock, 2006) and activation‐based accounts (Pickering & Branigan, 1999; Reitter, Keller, & Moore, 2011). Both theories predict that speakers should be primed by the syntactic choices of others, but only activation‐based accounts predict that speakers should be able to prime (...) themselves. Here we test whether speakers can be primed by their own productions in three behavioral experiments and find evidence of structural persistence following both comprehension and speakers’ own productions. We also find that comprehension‐based priming effects are larger for rarer syntactic structures than for more common ones, which is most consistent with error‐driven accounts. Because neither error‐driven accounts nor activation‐based accounts fully explain the data, we propose a hybrid model. (shrink)

In noun phrase coordinate constructions, there is a strong tendency for the syntactic structure of the second conjunct to match that of the first; the second conjunct in such constructions is therefore low in syntactic information. The theory of uniform information density predicts that low-information syntactic constructions will be counterbalanced by high information in other aspects of that part of the sentence, and high-information constructions will be counterbalanced by other low-information components. Three predictions follow: lexical probabilities will be lower in (...) second conjuncts than first conjuncts; lexical probabilities will be lower in matching second conjuncts than nonmatching ones; and syntactic repetition should be especially common for low-frequency NP expansions. Corpus analysis provides support for all three of these predictions. (shrink)

Prediction-based accounts of language acquisition have the potential to explain several different effects in child language acquisition and adult language processing. However, evidence regarding the developmental predictions of such accounts is mixed. Here, we consider several predictions of these accounts in two large-scale developmental studies of syntactic priming of the English dative alternation. Study 1 was a cross-sectional study (N = 140) of children aged 3−9 years, in which we found strong evidence of abstract priming and the lexical boost, but (...) little evidence that either effect was moderated by age. We found weak evidence for a prime surprisal effect; however, exploratory analyses revealed a protracted developmental trajectory for verb-structure biases, providing an explanation as for why prime surprisal effects are more elusive in developmental populations. In a longitudinal study (N = 102) of children in tightly controlled age bands at 42, 48, and 54 months, we found priming effects emerged on trials with verb overlap early but did not observe clear evidence of priming on trials without verb overlap until 54 months. There was no evidence of a prime surprisal effect at any time point and none of the effects were moderated by age. The results relating to the emergence of the abstract priming and lexical boost effects are consistent with prediction-based models, while the absence of age-related effects appears to reflect the structure-specific challenges the dative presents to English-acquiring children. Overall, our complex pattern of findings demonstrates the value of developmental data sets in testing psycholinguistic theory. (shrink)

In this article, Peter and Rowland explore the role of implicit statistical learning in syntactic development. It is often accepted that the processes observed in classic implicit learning or statistical learning experiments play an important role in the acquisition of natural language syntax. As Peter and Rowland point out, however, the results from neither research strand can be used to fully explain how children's syntax becomes adult‐like. They propose to address this shortcoming by using the structural priming paradigm.

Words are rarely produced in isolation. Yet, our understanding of multi-word production, and especially its time course, is still rather poor. In this research, we use event-related potentials to examine the production of multi-word noun phrases in the context of overt picture naming. We track the processing costs associated with the production of these noun phrases as compared with the production of bare nouns, from picture onset to articulation. Behavioral results revealed longer naming latencies for French noun phrases with determiners (...) and pre-nominal adjectives (D-A-N, the big cat ) than for noun phrases with a determiner (D-N, the cat ), or bare nouns (N, cat ). The spatio-temporal analysis of the ERPs revealed differences in the duration of stable global electrophysiological patterns as a function of utterance format in two time windows, from ~190 to 300 ms after picture onset, and from ~530 ms after picture onset to 100 ms before articulation. These findings can be accommodated in the following model. During grammatical encoding (here from ~190 to 300 ms), the noun and adjective lemmas are accessed in parallel, followed by the selection of the gender-agreeing determiner. Phonological encoding (after ~530 ms) operates sequentially. As a consequence, the phonological encoding process is longer for longer utterances. In addition, when determiners are repeated across trials, their phonological encoding can be anticipated or primed, resulting in a shortened encoding process. (shrink)

Intonation plays an integral role in comprehending spoken language. Listeners can rapidly integrate intonational information to predictively map a given pitch accent onto the speaker's likely referential intentions. We use mouse tracking to investigate two questions: (a) how listeners draw predictive inferences based on information from intonation? and (b) how listeners adapt their online interpretation of intonational cues when these are reliable or unreliable? We formulate a novel Bayesian model of rational predictive cue integration and explore predictions derived under a (...) concrete linking hypothesis relating a quantitative notion of evidential strength of a cue to the moment in time, relative to the unfolding speech signal, at which mouse trajectories turn towards the eventually selected option. In order to capture rational belief updates after concrete observations of a speaker's behavior, we formulate and explore an extension of this model that includes the listener's hierarchical beliefs about the speaker's likely production behavior. Our results are compatible with the assumption that listeners rapidly and rationally integrate all available intonational information, that they expect reliable intonational information initially, and that they adapt these initial expectations gradually during exposition to unreliable input. All materials, data, and scripts can be retrieved here: https://osf.io/dnbuk/. (shrink)

This study provides evidence for implicit learning in syntactic comprehension. By reanalyzing data from a syntactic priming experiment (Thothathiri & Snedeker, 2008), we find that the error signal associated with a syntactic prime influences comprehenders' subsequent syntactic expectations. This follows directly from error‐based implicit learning accounts of syntactic priming, but it is unexpected under accounts that consider syntactic priming a consequence of temporary increases in base‐level activation. More generally, the results raise questions about the principles underlying the maintenance of implicit (...) statistical knowledge relevant to language processing, and about possible functional motivations for syntactic priming. (shrink)

We welcome the proposal to use forward models to understand predictive processes in language processing. However, Pickering & Garrod (P&G) miss the opportunity to provide a strong framework for future work. Forward models need to be pursued in the context of learning. This naturally leads to questions about what prediction error these models aim to minimize.

Although structural priming has been considered to be an independent cognitive process, recent evidence suggests that structural priming is modulated by sociocognitive factors such as social perception; speakers are more likely to mimic the sentence structure of a socially desirable interlocutor than the structure of a less desirable interlocutor. This study aims to further address the role of sociocognitive factors in language use by investigating how individual differences in social perception and tendency to align with others modulate same-verb structural priming. (...) In particular, we investigate how likely students are to repeat a sentence structure of a teacher depending on their perception of the teacher and their social monitoring tendency. Our results demonstrate that students’ tendency to imitate a sentence structure of the teacher is positively influenced by their perception of the teacher but negatively by social monitoring. We suggest that the effects may be accounted for in terms of their influence on attention and memory encoding. (shrink)

We agree with Branigan & Pickering that structural priming experiments should supplant grammaticality judgments for testing linguistic representation. However, B&P overlook a vast linguistic literature that converges with – but extends – the experimental findings. B&P conclude that syntax is functionally independent of the lexicon. We argue that a broader approach to priming reveals cracks in the façade of syntactic autonomy.

While much earlier work has indicated that prior verb bias from lifelong language experience influences language processing, recent findings highlight the fact that verb biases induced during lab-based exposure sessions also influence processing. We investigated the nature of updating, i.e., how prior and current experience might interact in guiding subsequent sentence production. Participants underwent a short training session where we manipulated the bias of known English dative verbs. The prior bias of each verb for the double-object (DO) versus the prepositional-object (...) (PO) dative was estimated using a corpus. Current verb bias was counterbalanced and controlled experimentally. Bayesian mixed-effects logistic models of participants’ responses (DO or PO) during subsequent free-choice production showed that both the prior and current verb biases affected speakers’ construction choice. These effects were additive and not interactive, contrary to the prediction from error-based learning models. Semantic similarity to other verbs and their experimentally manipulated biases influenced sentence production, consistent with item-based analogy and exemplar theory. These results shed light on the potential mechanisms underlying language updating and the adaptation of sentence production to ongoing experience. (shrink)

Journal Name: Cognitive Linguistics Issue: Ahead of print.

When communicating, people adapt their linguistic representations to those of their interlocutors. Previous studies have shown that this also occurs at the semantic level for vague and context-dependent terms such as quantifiers and uncertainty expressions. However, work to date has mostly focused on passive exposure to a given speaker's interpretation, without considering the possible role of active linguistic interaction. In this study, we focus on gradable adjectives big and small and develop a novel experimental paradigm that allows participants to ask (...) clarification questions to figure out their interlocutor's interpretation. We find that, when in doubt, speakers do resort to this strategy, despite its inherent cognitive cost, and that doing so results in higher semantic alignment measured in terms of communicative success. While not all question–answer pairs are equally informative, we show that speakers become better questioners as the interaction progresses. Yet, the higher semantic alignment observed when speakers are able to ask questions does not increase over time. This suggests that conversational interaction's key advantage may be to boost coordination without committing to long-term semantic updates. Our findings shed new light on the mechanisms used by speakers to achieve semantic alignment and on how language is shaped by communication. (shrink)