Lexically-driven syntactic priming

Melinger, Alissa; Dobel, Christian

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2005.02.001

Cited by 69 publications

(79 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Participants produced more prepositional-object completions when the Dutch verb could only be used with the prepositional-object construction than when it could only be used with the double-object construction. Their results therefore extend Melinger and Dobel's (2005) finding of single-verb priming to a cross-linguistic situation.…”

Section: Cross-linguistic Priming and The Integration Of Syntactic Insupporting

confidence: 77%

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Structural priming: A critical review.

Pickering¹,

Ferreira²

2008

Psychological Bulletin

730

563

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Repetition is a central phenomenon of behavior, and researchers make extensive use of it to illuminate psychological functioning. In the language sciences, a ubiquitous form of such repetition is structural priming, a tendency to repeat or better process a current sentence because of its structural similarity to a previously experienced ("prime") sentence (Bock, 1986). The recent explosion of research in structural priming has made it the dominant means of investigating the processes involved in the production (and increasingly, comprehension) of complex expressions such as sentences. This review considers its implications for the representation of syntax and the mechanisms of production, comprehension, and their relationship. It then addresses the potential functions of structural priming, before turning to its implications for first language acquisition, bilingualism, and aphasia We close with theoretical and empirical recommendations for future investigations. KeywordsSyntax; Priming; Grammatical structure; Language production; Language comprehension A central phenomenon in experimental psychology is repetition -when we perform an action that is the same in some respects as an action we have performed before, or that we have observed others perform before. Repetition is central because it can reflect the operation of many different underlying psychological mechanisms. It can reflect learning and development (as we acquire a capability, we begin to repeat the products of that capability), imitation (we can repeat others' behavior to accomplish social as well as learning and development goals), and (lack of) executive control (when repetitive behavior reflects a perseverative tendency and so an inability to inhibit a previous and now potent response). Repetition is also inversely related to creativity, in that when we repeat a previous behavior, we forgo the opportunity to create a novel behavior instead.In the past couple of decades, research in the language sciences has revealed a new and striking form of repetition that we here call structural priming. When people talk or write, they tend to repeat the underlying basic structures that they recently produced or experienced others produce. This phenomenon has been the subject of heavy empirical scrutiny. Some of this scrutiny has been because, as in other domains in cognitive psychology (e.g., priming in the word-recognition literature; e.g., McNamara, 2005), the tendency to be affected by the repetition of aspects of knowledge can be used to diagnose the nature of that knowledge. So in this case, the tendency to repeat aspects of sentence structure helps researchers identify some of the representations that people construct when producing or comprehending language. As Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Martin Pickering, Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JZ, United Kingdom. Email: martin.pickering@ed.ac.uk. we shall see, much structural priming is unusually abstract, evidently ...

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Section: Cross-linguistic Priming and The Integration Of Syntactic Insupporting

confidence: 77%

“…This fast priming therefore takes place between verbs, and also occurs on the basis of a single-word prime (cf. Melinger & Dobel, 2005). However, its relationship to structural priming from complete sentences is not clear.…”

Section: Carlson (2001) Had Participants Interpret Sentences Such As mentioning

confidence: 99%

Structural priming: A critical review.

Pickering¹,

Ferreira²

2008

Psychological Bulletin

730

563

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“…First, in line with previous findings, the response choices showed an inverse preference effect. There was a stronger effect of primes in the prepositional object dative structure (which is overall less preferred in German; Loebell & Bock, 2003;Melinger & Dobel, 2005) than of primes in the double object dative structure. Fur- Figure 5.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 88%

The influence of verb-bound syntactic preferences on the processing of syntactic structures.

Weber¹,

Cladder-Micus²,

Hagoort³

2014

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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Speakers sometimes repeat syntactic structures across sentences, a phenomenon called syntactic priming. We investigated the influence of verb-bound syntactic preferences on syntactic priming effects in response choices and response latencies for German ditransitive sentences. In the response choices we found inverse preference effects: There were stronger syntactic priming effects for primes in the less preferred structure, given the syntactic preference of the prime verb. In the response latencies we found positive preference effects: There were stronger syntactic priming effects for primes in the more preferred structure, given the syntactic preference of the prime verb. These findings provide further support for the idea that syntactic processing is lexically guided.

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“…Importantly, a similar effect may be also achieved not only by the lexical priming of nouns but also by priming of verbs related to the event portrayed in the target trial. For example, in a study by Melinger & Dobel (2005) German speaking participants described ditransitive events (e.g., A boy giving a girl a toy) that allow both a prepositional object (A boy gives a toy to a girl) and a double object (A boy gives a girl a toy) descriptions. Prior to the target event presentation, the participant previewed either a ditransitive verb that permitted only a prepositional object frame (e.g., adressieren) or only a double object frame (e.g., entziehen).…”

Section: Interactive Properties Of Attentional Cueingmentioning

confidence: 99%

Attention and syntax in sentence production: A critical review

Myachykov¹,

Garrod²,

Scheepers³

2009

discours

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Abstract:People often speak about visually perceived events that unfold in real time. In doing so speakers regularly translate the details of the visual world they describe onto the grammatical properties of the sentences about it. For example, the speaker needs to map her constantly changing attentional state onto the syntactic plan of the produced sentences. The present paper briefly discusses what attention is, explores methods for the co-activation of attentional and syntactic operations during the production of visually-mediated sentences in languages with different syntactic properties, and reviews the evidence for a regular link between the speaker's choice of sentential structure and the distribution of the speaker's attention to the event's referents. Also, it discusses evidence for interactive properties of attentional and other types of priming on the speaker's syntactic choice. Based on reviewed literature, we conclude that attention plays a crucial role in directing lexical and grammatical choices in human discourse. At the same time, the organization of the language's grammar reciprocates this influence by constraining the extent to which the distribution of attention can affect the real-time syntactic choices. Finally, we discuss how attentional priming engages in complex interactions with other priming effects: it interacts with lexical priming but not with syntactic priming, supporting an encapsulated view of sentence formulation. Keywords:attention, syntax, word order, sentence production Résumé:On parle souvent des événements alors qu'on est en train de les percevoir visuellement. Les locuteurs doivent alors projeter les détails du monde visuel qu'ils sont en train de décrire sur les propriétés grammaticales des phrases qui le décrivent. . Ainsi, le locuteur doit répercuter les changements constants de son état attentionnel sur la structure syntaxique des phrases qu'il produit. Le présent article discute brièvement de ce qu'est l'attention, puis présente les méthodes pour observer la coactivation des opérations attentionnelles et syntaxiques lors de la production de phrases résultant d'explorations visuelles, dans des langues ayant des propriétés syntaxiques différentes. Nous passons ensuite en revue les arguments en faveur d'un lien entre le choix du locuteur quant à la structure de la phrase et le partage de son attention sur les référents de l'événement. Nous discutons également des données mettant en évidence les propriétés interactives de l'amorçage attentionnel et d'autres types d'amorçage sur les choix syntaxiques du locuteur. Sur la base de la littérature, nous concluons que l'attention joue un rôle fondamental dans les choix lexicaux et grammaticaux du locuteur, tandis que la grammaire de chaque langue détermine, à son tour, dans quelle mesure la distribution de l'attention peut affecter les choix syntaxiques en temps réel. Enfin, nous exposons comment l'amorçage attentionnel interagit avec d'autres effets d'amorçage : il interagit avec l'amorçage lexical mais pas avec l'amorçage synt...

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Lexically-driven syntactic priming

Cited by 69 publications

References 17 publications

Structural priming: A critical review.

Structural priming: A critical review.

The influence of verb-bound syntactic preferences on the processing of syntactic structures.

Attention and syntax in sentence production: A critical review

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