Phonological prediction during comprehension: A review and meta-analysis of visual-world eye-tracking studies

Abstract

Current theories of language prediction stipulate that people can predict various types of linguistic information, including the phonological form of a highly predictable word, and some theories posit that phonological prediction plays a pivotal role in prediction-driven learning. However, a review of studies investigating phonological prediction suggests that the effect is inconsistent and small, which raises a question about its role during everyday language comprehension and language learning. Here, I conduct a meta-analysis of visual-world eye-tracking studies investigating phonological prediction with the goal of revealing the robustness and the time-course of the phonological prediction effect. The combined analysis of 20 experiments revealed a small but reliable effect of the phonological prediction effect. This effect emerged rapidly but was not closely aligned to the predictable word onset. The size of this effect depended on the target word cloze probability and depended marginally on the experiment design and the type of visual stimuli. I discuss the implications for the theories of language prediction.