Language experience and skill alters the dynamics of lexical prediction in sentence processing
Ryan Peters (Florida State University) [email protected], Theres Grüter (University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa), Arielle Borovsky (Florida State University)
Experiment 1
Background and RQ
•
•
May facilitate recovery in the face of
uncertainty and unexpected outcomes.
McClelland & Elman (1986)
Is Greater in children than adults
Is Lacking in children with SLI
Borovsky, Burns, Elman, & Evans (2013)
Plausible Target
Between-group comparison of Log-gaze Ratio
(“chases the” time window)
𝑃 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 − 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝
Log– gaze Ratio = log
𝑃 𝐮𝐧𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐝
Log-gaze Ratio
RQ: How does language experience and skill influence
the range of expected/predicted outcomes during
spoken sentence comprehension?
Method
Language History
Questionnaire
Eye Tracking Task :
Participants see an
visual scene (left) and
hear one of four related
sentences (below).
They then click on the
picture that “goes with
the sentence.”
Eye Tracking Task
Offline language
measure:
• PPVT
Target
The pirate chases the ship
SHIP
TREASURE
CAT
BONES
The pirate
The dog
The dog
Art1 Agent
hides the treasure
chases the cat
hides the bones
Action Art2 Target
Participants
• Exp 1: n = 68
• Exp 2: n = 55
• Exposed to another
language besides English
(before or concurrently)
in childhood
• PPVT median split
groups
• Broadly similar results
for groups based on
answer to: “Do you
consider yourself a
Native Speaker of
English?” (yes/no)
AgentRelated
TREASURE
SHIP
BONES
CAT
ActionRelated
Experiment 2
Implausible Target
English Skill SR
8.50
(1.11)
9.38 **
(0.82)
8.00
(1.14)
9.15**
(0.95)
English AoA
(yrs)
6.59
(4.53)
3.46 **
(2.95)
7.63
(4.81)
3.19**
(3.23)
Age (yrs)
21.74
(2.4)
21.26
(1.68)
21.21
(2.04)
20.81
(2.91)
English Exposure
(yrs)
15.23
(6.77)
17.10
(4.54)
12.08
(6.26)
17.28*
(6.61)
LX1 skill SR
7.24
(2.55)
7.24
(1.69)
7.19
(3.26)
5.89
(2.99)
9
25
24
10
2
25
14
13
PPVT
standardized
NS = “yes” SR
NS = “no” SR
**
SDs reported in parentheses. * p < .05 ** p < .005
SR Self-rating, range (0-10) for English and LX skill
1 LX = Strongest language besides English
**
chases
the
The
ship
p = .04, d = -0.58
Log-gaze ratio as a function of PPVT
(“chases the” time window)
F(1,54)=2.99, p=.09, Multiple R2 = .05
Log-gaze ratioi = .14 + .005 × PPVTi
chases the
ship
1550 ms
p < .001
2250 ms
***
1900 ms
*
p = .02
p < .001
Time in ms from sentence onset
Figure: Timecourse of fixations to each area of interest, in 50-ms time bins (with SE bars), by proficiency group.
Experiment 1 Outcomes
•
All measures indicate Lower PPVT participants’ fixations were more
biased towards locally coherent item than Higher PPVT participants
Implausible target (Action-Related, Unrelated) Conditions: Checking the hypothesis, based on results
of Exp 1, that Lower Skill participants will enjoy an Action vs Unrelated boost, whereas Higher Skill participants will not
Within-Group Between-Condition Comparisons
Action-Related as target
(“chases the” time window)
t(50.77) = -2.08
pirate
1300 ms
Between-group comparison of Log-gaze Ratio
collapsed across conditions
CAT
BONES
BONES
CAT
SHIP
TREASURE
TREASURE SHIP
Experiment 2
Lower
Higher
84.86
103.96**
(6.6)
(7.1)
pirate
F(1,66)=9.96, p=.002, Multiple R2 = .12
Log-gaze ratioi = .09 - .01 × PPVTi
Unrelated
Experiment 1
Lower Higher
86.47
104.88**
(5.96) (7.92)
The
Unrelated
Higher PPVT (n = 34)
Time in ms from sentence onset
Log-gaze ratio as a function of PPVT
(“chases the” time window)
Table: Mean values of PPVT scores and questionnaire answers by
PPVT Group for both experiments
Group
p = .12, d = 0.40
Log-gaze Ratio
Spoken sentence
t(63.11) = 1.59
AgentRelated
Lower PPVT (n = 34)
Proportion Fixating to Target Area
•
Target
Proportion Fixating to Target Area
Locally coherent lexical activation:
• Activation of sentential outcomes that are
coherent in the context of the most recent
word but not in the global context, and thus
are less likely
ActionRelated
The
Lower PPVT (n = 28)
pirate
chases
the
p < .001
cat 2900 ms
bone
2650 ms
Unrelated as target
The
Higher PPVT (n = 27)
pirate
chases
the
cat
bone
2700 ms
# p = .08
1850 ms
***
Time in ms from sentence onset
p < .001
Time in ms from sentence onset
Experiment 2 Outcomes
•
•
All measures indicate Higher PPVT participants’ fixations were more biased towards locally coherent item than Lower PPVT (opposite of Exp 1)
Higher-PPVT participants’ fixations to Action-related as target were faster and more robust
Citations:
Borovsky, A., Burns, E., Elman, J. L., & Evans, J. L. (2013). Lexical activation during sentence
comprehension in adolescents with history of Specific Language Impairment. Journal of
Communication Disorders, 46(5), 413-427.
Borovsky, A., Elman, J. L., & Fernald, A. (2012). Knowing a lot for one’s age: Vocabulary skill
and not age is associated with anticipatory incremental sentence interpretation in
children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 112(4), 417-436.
Kuperberg, G. R., & Jaeger, T. F. (2016). What do we mean by prediction in language
comprehension? Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 31(1), 32-59.
McClelland, J. L., & Elman, J. L. (1986). The TRACE model of speech perception. Cognitive
Psychology, 18(1), 1-86.
Discussion
•
•
•
Results across experiments indicate that language skill interacts with task demands during lexical activation of
locally-coherent, but less-likely sentence outcomes.
One explanation is that higher skill participants more efficiently modulate their linguistic predictions according to
the demands of the current task than do lower-skill participants.
Results lend support to utility function accounts of prediction (Kuperberg & Jaeger,2016), which suggest that
language skill/experience factor into the calculation of the
utility of prediction relative
some
processing
goal.
Acknowledgements,
credits,toor
disclosures
can
go here.