A basis for generating expectancies for verbs from nouns

We explore the implications of an event-based expectancy generation approach to language understanding, suggesting that one useful strategy employed by comprehenders is to generate expectations about upcoming words. We focus on two questions: (1) What role is played by elements other than verbs in g...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Memory & cognition 2005-10, Vol.33 (7), p.1174-1184
Main Authors: MCRAE, Ken, HARE, Mary, ELMAN, Jeffrey L, FERRETTI, Todd
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological and medical sciences
Expectations
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Grammar
Humans
Hypotheses
Influence
Information processing
Knowledge
Language
Memory
Mental Recall
Paired-Associate Learning
Production and perception of written language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Reading
Roles
Semantics
Set (Psychology)
Verbal Behavior
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Summary:We explore the implications of an event-based expectancy generation approach to language understanding, suggesting that one useful strategy employed by comprehenders is to generate expectations about upcoming words. We focus on two questions: (1) What role is played by elements other than verbs in generating expectancies? (2) What connection exists between expectancy generation and event-based knowledge? Because verbs follow their arguments in many constructions (particularly in verb-final languages), deferring expectations until the verb seems inefficient. Both human data and computational modeling suggest that other sentential elements may also play a role in predictive processing and that these constraints often reflect knowledge regarding typical events. We investigated these predictions, using both short and long stimulus onset asynchrony priming. Robust priming obtained when verbs were named aloud following typical agents, patients, instruments, and locations, suggesting that event memory is organized so that nouns denoting entities and objects activate the classes of events in which they typically play a role. These computations are assumed to be an important component of expectancy generation in sentence processing.
ISSN:0090-502X
1532-5946
DOI:10.3758/BF03193221