Age-related and individual differences in the use of prediction during language comprehension

Federmeier, Kara D.; Kutas, Marta; Schul, Rina

doi:10.1016/j.bandl.2010.07.006

Cited by 251 publications

(318 citation statements)

References 66 publications

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“…Differences in amplitude, latencies, or scalp distributions reflect the different sub-processes that may underlie the construction of these mental representations (e.g., Brouwer & Hoeks, 2013). Frontal positivities have been found to be elicited in situations where comprehenders' predictions about upcoming lexical items are disconfirmed (DeLong, Urbach, Groppe, & Federmeier, Kutas, & Schul, 2010;Federmeier, Wlotko, Ochoa-Dewald, & Kutas, 2007;Thornhill & van Petten, 2012;Van Petten & Luka, 2012). In the present study, however, both brief and elaborate contexts were quite low-constraining.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 39%

On the predictability of event boundaries in discourse: An ERP investigation

2017

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When reading a text describing an everyday activity, comprehenders build a model of the situation described that includes prior knowledge of the entities, locations, and sequences of actions that typically occur within the event. Previous work has demonstrated that such knowledge guides the processing of incoming information by making event boundaries more or less expected. In the present ERP study, we investigated whether comprehenders' expectations about event boundaries are influenced by how elaborately common events are described in the context. Participants read short stories in which a common activity (e.g., washing the dishes) was described either in brief or in an elaborate manner. The final sentence contained a target word referring to a more predictable action marking a fine event boundary (e.g., drying) or a less predictable action, marking a coarse event boundary (e.g., jogging). The results revealed a larger N400 effect for coarse event boundaries compared to fine event boundaries, but no interaction with description length. Between 600 and 1000 ms, however, elaborate contexts elicited a larger frontal positivity compared to brief contexts. This effect was largely driven by less predictable targets, marking coarse event boundaries. We interpret the P600 effect as indexing the updating of the situation model at event boundaries, consistent with Event Segmentation Theory (EST). The updating process is more

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 39%

On the predictability of event boundaries in discourse: An ERP investigation

2017

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“…Previous research has proposed that the frontal positivity reflects the suppression or inhibition of a prediction for a different word or concept (Federmeier et al, 2007;Kutas, 1993) and/or learning signal from which to update future predictions (Federmeier, Kutas, & Schul, 2010). However, existing results have remained mixed with regard to whether the positivity becomes larger when a strong prediction is violated (Federmeier et al, 2007), or if the amplitude of the frontal positivity is reduced when a strongly expected word is encountered (Thornhill & van Petten, 2012).…”

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confidence: 66%

Wait a second! delayed impact of argument roles on on-line verb prediction

Chow

Lau

Wang

et al. 2018

Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

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Comprehenders can use rich contextual information to anticipate upcoming input on the fly, but recent findings suggest that salient information about argument roles may not impact verb prediction. We took advantage of the word order properties of Mandarin Chinese to examine the time course with which argument role information impacts verb prediction. We isolated the contribution of argument role information by manipulating the order of pre-verbal noun phrase arguments while holding lexical information constant, and we examined its effects on accessing the verb in long-term semantic memory by measuring the amplitude of the N400 component.Experiment 1 showed when the verb appeared immediately after its arguments, even strongly constraining argument role information failed to modulate the N400 response to the verb. An N400 effect emerged in Experiment 2 when the verb appeared at a greater delay. Experiment 3 corroborated the contrast between the first two experiments through a within-participants manipulation of the time interval between the arguments and the verb, by varying the position of an adverbial phrase. These results suggest time is a key factor governing how diverse contextual information contributes to predictions. Here argument role information is shown to impact verb prediction, but its effect is not immediate.3

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“…In particular, interactions between visual processing and cognitive processes associated with the syntactic, linguistic, and semantic content of language are normal components of reading (e.g., Jordan & Thomas, 2002;Rayner, 2009) and are likely to involve the influence of spatial frequencies in central vision. Indeed, although the extent to which older adults benefit more from contextual cues during reading is controversial (e.g., Madden, 1988;Stine-Morrow, Miller, Gagne, & Hertzog, 2008;Federmeier & Kutas, 2005;Federmeier, Kutas, & Schul, 2010), loss of sensitivity to spatial frequencies in older age may be offset by a greater use of contextual information, and this is consistent with the view that older readers compensate for processing difficulties by a greater reliance on discourse context (e.g., Stine-Morrow et al, 2008). Moreover, for both young and older adults, when fixations Reading With Filtered Fixations 13 are made during reading, information is also acquired from locations extending outside central vision in the direction of reading, and this parafoveal information is used to pre-process the identity of words before the next saccade is made in their direction (see Rayner 1998Rayner , 2009).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reading with filtered fixations: Adult age differences in the effectiveness of low-level properties of text within central vision.

Jordan¹,

McGowan²,

Paterson³

2014

Psychology and Aging

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The ability to read is crucial for functioning effectively in everyday life. However, numerous studies indicate that many aspects of reading performance differ between young adults (aged 30 years and under) and older adults (aged 65 years and over; e.g., Kliegl, Grabner, Rolfs, & Engbert, 2004; Rayner, Castelhano, & Yang, 2009;Rayner, Reichle, Stroud, Williams, & Pollatsek, 2006; see also Laubrock, Kliegl, & Engbert, 2006) and these differences are widely attributed to normal sensory and cognitive decline. But the precise nature of the differences in reading performance that occur as adults reach older age has yet to be fully determined.Of particular importance is that the eyes move when reading and make a series of brief fixational pauses, with the effect that different areas of text can be viewed within central vision (an area approximately 2° wide around the point of fixation; for a review, see Rayner, 2009).Crucially, during these pauses, the visual system acquires only low-level visual properties from text and these visual properties then provide the bases for the subsequent linguistic analyses that ultimately allow readers to make sense of what they are seeing (e.g., Allen, Smith, Lien, Kaut, & Canfield, 2009;Lovegrove, Bowling, Badcock, & Blackwood, 1980;Patching & Jordan, 2005a, 2005b. Indeed, the low-level properties of text falling within central vision provide a range of different scales of visual analysis (spatial frequencies) that are associated with different aspects of the text being read. So, for example, lower spatial frequencies allow readers to see a word's coarse overall shape but not its fine detail, whereas higher spatial frequencies allow readers to see a word's fine detail, such as the precise form of individual letter features (e.g., Allen et al., 2009;Jordan, 1990Jordan, , 1995Kwon & Legge, 2012;Legge, Pelli, Rubin, & Schleske, 1985; Patching & Jordan, 2005a,b). Thus, although spatial frequency analyses in central vision are unlikely to be apparent to the reader, reading relies fundamentally on these low-level visual properties of text. But it is unclear whether the effectiveness of spatial frequencies within central vision shown by young adults remains unaltered in older age. Of particular significance is that normal aging produces a characteristic decline in sensitivity to various scales of spatial frequency, especially to higher spatial frequencies within central vision, due to a combination of optical changes and changes in neural transmission (for discussions, see Derefelt, Lennerstrand, & Lundh, 1979;Elliott, 1987;Higgins, Jaffe, Caruso, & deMonasterio, 1988;Laubrock et al., 2006;Owsley, 2011). As a result, older adults may be less able than young adults to process the visual detail of text falling within central vision during fluent reading, and this change may affect reading performance. Indeed, it is widely assumed that reading relies greatly on visual detail from within central vision (e.g., Engbert, Nuthmann, Richter, & Kliegl, 2005;Reichle, Rayner, & Pollatsek, 2003; see als...

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Age-related and individual differences in the use of prediction during language comprehension

Cited by 251 publications

References 66 publications

On the predictability of event boundaries in discourse: An ERP investigation

On the predictability of event boundaries in discourse: An ERP investigation

Wait a second! delayed impact of argument roles on on-line verb prediction

Reading with filtered fixations: Adult age differences in the effectiveness of low-level properties of text within central vision.

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