Abstract
Natural language involves both speaking and listening. Recent models claim that production and comprehension share aspects of processing and are linked within individuals (Pickering and Garrod, 2004, 2013; MacDonald, 2013; Dell and Chang, 2014). Evidence for this claim has come from studies of cross-modality structural priming, mainly examining processing in the direction of comprehension to production. The current study replicated these comprehension to production findings and developed a novel cross-modal structural priming paradigm from production to comprehension using a temporally sensitive online measure of comprehension, Event-Related Potentials. For Comprehension-to-Production priming, participants first listened to active or passive sentences and then described target pictures using either structure. In Production-to-Comprehension priming, participants first described a picture using either structure and then listened to target passive sentences while EEG was recorded. Comprehension-to-Production priming showed the expected passive sentence priming for syntactic choice, but not response time (RT) or average syllable duration. In Production-to-Comprehension priming, primed, versus unprimed, passive sentences elicited a reduced N400. These effects support the notion that production and comprehension share aspects of processing and are linked within the individual. Moreover, this paradigm can be used for the exploration priming at different linguistic levels as well as the influence of extra-linguistic factors on natural language use.
Highlights
In natural language use, individuals speak in order to communicate their ideas and listen in order to gather new information
The current study replicated this comprehension-to-production priming, but extended the paradigm to study whether the link between the two modalities is evident when examining the influence of production on subsequent comprehension processing, in a novel cross-modality structural priming methodology using behavioral and event-related potential techniques (ERPs)
The present study uniquely studies cross-modality structural priming in both directions, from production into comprehension as well as from comprehension into production, combining behavioral, and Event-Related Potential measures
Summary
Individuals speak in order to communicate their ideas and listen in order to gather new information. Recent theories (Pickering and Garrod, 2004, 2013; MacDonald, 2013; Dell and Chang, 2014), though, contend that production and comprehension share their underlying representations or processing mechanisms. In line with these theories, structural priming, cross-modality structural priming Without shared representations or underlying processing mechanisms, no priming from one modality to the other would be present These cross-modality structural priming studies typically examine the influence of comprehension on target production processing. We focused on the interaction of comprehension and production in the less-studied direction, from production-to-comprehension (and compare that to priming in the reverse direction), using ERPs to obtain temporally sensitive measures of online sentence comprehension
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
