Abstract
Many studies have shown that a supportive context facilitates language comprehension. A currently influential view is that language production may support prediction in language comprehension. Experimental evidence for this, however, is relatively sparse. Here we explored whether encouraging prediction in a language production task encourages the use of predictive contexts in an interleaved comprehension task. In Experiment 1a, participants listened to the first part of a sentence and provided the final word by naming aloud a picture. The picture name was predictable or not predictable from the sentence context. Pictures were named faster when they could be predicted than when this was not the case. In Experiment 1b the same sentences, augmented by a final spill-over region, were presented in a self-paced reading task. No difference in reading times for predictive versus non-predictive sentences was found. In Experiment 2, reading and naming trials were intermixed. In the naming task, the advantage for predictable picture names was replicated. More importantly, now reading times for the spill-over region were considerable faster for predictive than for non-predictive sentences. We conjecture that these findings fit best with the notion that prediction in the service of language production encourages the use of predictive contexts in comprehension. Further research is required to identify the exact mechanisms by which production exerts its influence on comprehension.
Highlights
A hallmark of human communication is the speed with which we process language
We further explored the hypothesis that a task set encouraging prediction in a production task encourages readers to use predictive contexts in a comprehension task, compared to a task set only involving comprehension
This finding is in line with our hypothesis: When participants were asked to carry out a production task in addition to comprehension, the likelihood of facilitatory processing was increased as compared to when they carried out a “pure” comprehension task
Summary
A hallmark of human communication is the speed with which we process language. In dialogue, interlocutors typically react to previous turns very quickly, often within as little as 200 ms (cf. De Ruiter, Mitterer, & Enfield, 2006; Heldner & Edlund, 2010). A currently prominent view assumes that language production may support prediction in language comprehension (Dell & Chang, 2014; Pickering & Garrod, 2013). If production-based prediction plays an important role in comprehension, one would expect that contexts encouraging prediction in the service of language production should facilitate language comprehension
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