Journal article
Inhibition of lexical representations after violated semantic predictions
Cognition, Vol.240, 105585
11/2023
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105585
PMID: 37556941
Abstract
There is a consensus that humans predict upcoming words during sentence processing. Prediction makes language comprehension fast and efficient if this anticipatory processing is accurate. However, often times, predictions are not correct. There is a lack of research investigating the cognitive operations at play when predictions are violated. According to several proposals, such violations lead to an inhibition of the predicted word to facilitate the integration of the unexpected word. Across four experiments, we have tested whether predicted words are indeed inhibited when listeners encounter unexpected stimuli, and whether the linguistic status (word or sound) and semantic congruency of a word (plausible or implausible) influences this purported inhibitory process. Using a Cross-Modal Lexical Priming paradigm, we showed that when predictions are violated, the activation of the predicted word is inhibited, resulting in increased reaction times. These inhibitory effects appear to be language specific, in that they are only observed after unexpected words, as opposed to non-linguistic sounds (tones). However, contrary to a long-held assumption in the field of sentence processing, inhibitory effects are not modulated by the semantic congruency of the unexpected word (i.e., whether the unexpected word is plausible within the sentence context). Indeed, in the current study, any linguistic information that violated listeners' semantic prediction resulted in the inhibition of the predicted word. Thus, the current findings are more compatible with a view in which unexpected linguistic events that are meaningful engage inhibitory processes with the specific purpose of inhibiting the predicted, though out-of-date, word.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Inhibition of lexical representations after violated semantic predictions
- Creators
- Jina KimJan R WesselKristi Hendrickson
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Cognition, Vol.240, 105585
- DOI
- 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105585
- PMID
- 37556941
- NLM abbreviation
- Cognition
- ISSN
- 0010-0277
- eISSN
- 1873-7838
- Grant note
- DOI: 10.13039/100000002, name: National Institutes of Health, award: R01 DC020143, R01 NS102201
- Language
- English
- Date published
- 11/2023
- Academic Unit
- Roy J. Carver Department of Biomedical Engineering; Neurology; Communication Sciences and Disorders; Psychological and Brain Sciences; Iowa Neuroscience Institute; Center for Social Science Innovation
- Record Identifier
- 9984453333302771
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