Unifying structural priming effects on syntactic choices and timing of sentence generation

•Structure preference modulates priming of syntactic choice and production latencies.•Priming affects choices for passives only, but affects latencies stronger for actives.•Cumulativity influences priming of syntactic choices as well as production latencies.•Also verb repetition influences priming o...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of memory and language 2016-12, Vol.91, p.59-80
Main Authors: Segaert, Katrien, Wheeldon, Linda, Hagoort, Peter
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cumulativity
Language
Priming
Production latency
Reaction time
Repetition
Sentence structure
Structural priming
Structure preference
Syntactic choice
Syntactic processing
Syntactic structures
Syntax
Verb repetition
Verbs
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Summary:•Structure preference modulates priming of syntactic choice and production latencies.•Priming affects choices for passives only, but affects latencies stronger for actives.•Cumulativity influences priming of syntactic choices as well as production latencies.•Also verb repetition influences priming of both syntactic choices and latencies.•The Two-stage Competition model is an integrated account explaining all these effects. We investigated whether structural priming of production latencies is sensitive to the same factors known to influence persistence of structural choices: structure preference, cumulativity and verb repetition. In two experiments, we found structural persistence only for passives (inverse preference effect) while priming effects on latencies were stronger for the actives (positive preference effect). We found structural persistence for passives to be influenced by immediate primes and long lasting cumulativity (all preceding primes) (Experiment 1), and to be boosted by verb repetition (Experiment 2). In latencies we found effects for actives were sensitive to long lasting cumulativity (Experiment 1). In Experiment 2, in latencies we found priming for actives overall, while for passives the priming effects emerged as the cumulative exposure increased but only when also aided by verb repetition. These findings are consistent with the Two-stage Competition model, an integrated model of structural priming effects for sentence choice and latency.
ISSN:0749-596X
1096-0821
DOI:10.1016/j.jml.2016.03.011