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

Abstract

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

Anticipating predictability: an ERP investigation of expectation-managing discourse markers in dialogue comprehension

“…grey), any switch from an original to a revised prediction may have had only minor consequences at the level of the N400. A final possibility is that refining or revising initial predictions may involve computations that require more time than participants had between encountering the discourse marker and reading the critical word (for evidence that contextual facilitation takes time, see Camblin, Ledoux, Boudewyn, Gordon, & Swaab, 2007;Chow, Lau, Wang, & Phillips, 2018;Wlotko & Federmeier, 2015). Future studies could investigate whether discourse markers can modulate N400 predictability effects if more time is available for prediction.…”

Language ERPs reflect learning through prediction error propagation

“…Role Reversal studies (Chow & Phillips, 2013;Chow, Lau, Wang, & Phillips, 2018;Kim & Osterhout, 2005;Van Herten et al, 2005;Hoeks et al, 2004;Friederici & Frisch, 2000;Kolk et al, 2003). Kuperberg (2007) reviewed this literature and highlighted various factors that may be relevant such as semantic associations, animacy, plausibility, task, and context.…”

“…Kuperberg (2007) reviewed this literature and highlighted various factors that may be relevant such as semantic associations, animacy, plausibility, task, and context. The work of Chow and colleagues (Chow & Phillips, 2013;Chow et al, 2018) suggested that high predictability and distance between the arguments and the verb were also important. The model's input language was much simpler than human languages and this createed conditions of high predictability that could have enhanced the N400 effect.…”

A Tale of Two Positivities and the N400: Distinct neural signatures are evoked by confirmed and violated predictions at different levels of representation

“…Indeed, several studies have reported a late frontal positivity in less constraining contexts (e.g. Chow, Lau, Wang & Phillips, 2018;Thornhill & Van Petten, 2012;Zirnstein, van Hell & Kroll, 2018;Freunberger & Roehm, 2016). It is possible that certain inputs provide particularly informative cues that trigger large updates in the mental model, even when there is no need to inhibit wrongly predicted information.…”