Syntactic Priming Effects on Active and Passive Sentence Production in Persons with Aphasia: Evidence from an Eye-tracking Study

The nature of the facilitation occurring when sentences share a verb and syntactic structure (i.e., lexically-mediated syntactic priming) has not been adequately addressed in comprehension. In four eye-tracking experiments, we investigated the degree to which lexical, syntactic, thematic, and verb form repetition contribute to facilitated target sentence processing. Lexically-mediated syntactic priming was observed when primes and targets shared a verb and abstract syntactic structure, regardless of the ambiguity of the prime. In addition, repeated thematic role assignment resulted in syntactic priming (to a lesser degree), and verb form repetition facilitated lexical rather than structural processing. We conclude that priming in comprehension involves lexically associated abstract syntactic representations, and facilitation of verb and thematic role processes. The results also indicate that syntactic computation errors during prime processing are not necessary for lexically-mediated priming to occur during target processing. This result is inconsistent with an error-driven learning account of lexically-mediated syntactic priming effects.

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Syntactic Priming Effects on Sentence Production Time in Korean(L1) and English(L2)

Studies in Modern Grammar ◽

10.14342/smog.2015.84.89 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 2015 (84) ◽

pp. 89-113

Author(s):

Boon-Joo Park

Keyword(s):

Sentence Production ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Production Time ◽

Priming Effects

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Evidence for robust abstract syntactic representations in production before age three

First Language ◽

10.1177/0142723720905919 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 014272372090591

Author(s):

Anouschka Foltz ◽

Karolin Knopf ◽

Kristina Jonas ◽

Petra Jaecks ◽

Prisca Stenneken

Keyword(s):

Working Memory ◽

Strong Evidence ◽

Priming Effect ◽

Young Age ◽

Sentence Production ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Phonological Working Memory ◽

Syntactic Structures ◽

Priming Process

This study investigated whether we can find reliable comprehension-to-production syntactic priming effects in children aged 2;0 to 2;11 and how phonological working memory and sentence production skills relate to the syntactic priming process. A finding of reliable syntactic priming effects would provide strong evidence that children’s syntactic representations are abstracted over individual lexical items. To test children at this young age, they were primed with simple and early-acquired transitive (e.g., tickling (a) baby) and unergative intransitive (e.g., running) syntactic structures. Children aged 2;7 to 2;11, primed with alternating prime structures, revealed a reliable syntactic priming effect. In addition, phonological working memory (moderated by age) and sentence production skills positively affected transitive productions. Children aged 2;0 to 2;6, primed either with alternating or cumulative prime structures, showed no priming effect. Together, the data indicate that children have robust abstract syntactic representations for the tested structures before age three and that both phonological working memory and production skills relate to children’s syntactic priming behavior, albeit in different ways.

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The processing of passive sentences in German

Language Interaction and Acquisition / Langage Interaction et Acquisition ◽

10.1075/lia.19013.cri ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 163-195

Author(s):

Valentina Cristante ◽

Sarah Schimke

Keyword(s):

Eye Tracking ◽

Primary School ◽

Language Processing ◽

Empirical Data ◽

Age Groups ◽

Visual World ◽

German Speaking ◽

Passive Sentence ◽

Auxiliary Verb ◽

Age Range

Abstract This study examines the processing and interpretation of passive sentences in German-speaking seven-year-olds, ten-year-olds, and adults. This structure is often assumed to be particularly difficult to understand, and not yet fully mastered in primary school (Kemp, Bredel, & Reich, 2008), i.e. in children aged between six and eleven. Few studies provide empirical data concerning this age range; it is therefore unknown whether this assumption is warranted. Against this background, we tested whether the three age groups differed in their off-line comprehension of passive sentences. In addition, we employed Visual World eye-tracking to measure processing difficulties that may differ between age groups and may not be reflected in the final interpretations. Previous studies on adult language processing in German and English have documented a preference to interpret sentences according to an agent-first strategy. Our results show that all three groups make use of this strategy, and that all of them are able to revise this interpretation once the first cue indicating a passive sentence is encountered (the auxiliary verb form wurde). We conclude that at least from age seven on, children have the linguistic and cognitive prerequisites to process the passive morphosyntax of German and to revise initial sentence misinterpretations.

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Syntactic priming and the lexical boost effect during sentence production and sentence comprehension: An fMRI study

Brain and Language ◽

10.1016/j.bandl.2012.12.003 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 124 (2) ◽

pp. 174-183 ◽

Cited By ~ 29

Author(s):

Katrien Segaert ◽

Gerard Kempen ◽

Karl Magnus Petersson ◽

Peter Hagoort

Keyword(s):

Sentence Comprehension ◽

Sentence Production ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Fmri Study

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Syntactic priming of relative clause attachments: persistence of structural configuration in sentence production

Cognition ◽

10.1016/s0010-0277(03)00119-7 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 89 (3) ◽

pp. 179-205 ◽

Cited By ~ 124

Author(s):

Christoph Scheepers

Keyword(s):

Relative Clause ◽

Sentence Production ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Structural Configuration

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Priming Effect of Colour on Aiding the Attentional Reorientation in Sequential Presentations of Temporal Data Visualization: Evidence From Eye-Tracking

Interacting with Computers ◽

10.1093/iwc/iwab021 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 33 (2) ◽

pp. 188-210

Author(s):

Ningyue Peng ◽

Chengqi Xue ◽

Haiyan Wang ◽

Yafeng Niu ◽

Lei Wu

Keyword(s):

Visual Search ◽

Eye Tracking ◽

Data Visualization ◽

Priming Effect ◽

Facilitatory Effect ◽

Temporal Data ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Priming Condition ◽

Search Field ◽

Task Irrelevant

Abstract In the present study, we focus on the priming effect of colour on mitigating the attentional reorientation cost, which is led by re-constructing the frame of reference for attention shift and visual search in sequential presentations of temporal data visualization. The study involves two experiments using complementary recordings of behavioural performance and eye-tracking events. Two aspects of colour primes are highlighted: the prime validity and the colour perceptual accessibility. A task paradigm integrating the feature search and keeping-track task was adopted in our experiments. In Experiment 1 (with a group of 16 participants), we confirmed the colour priming effect by comparing the priming condition to the neutral baseline. Furthermore, global colours that are with high perceptual accessibility generated more evident priming effects than local colours. However, more interferences in misguiding the attention to task-irrelevant regions were found when the global primes were invalid. In Experiment 2 (with another group of 15 participants), we verify the finding in Experiment 1 that global colours produced more pronounced priming effects in alleviating the attentional reorientation cost by comparing two groups of real-world visualizations with either global or local colours as the prime. Large saccades were initiated much earlier, and the search efficiency got improved when provided with global colours. We conjecture that the facilitatory effect from global colours may stem from its benefit on the pre-attentive processing of the search field. The research findings provide evidence for utilizing colours as the primes in mitigating the attentional reorientation cost and accelerating visual search in sequential presentations.

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EXPRESS: When the independence of syntactic representation meets the sentence processing of Mandarin: Evidence from syntactic priming

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology ◽

10.1177/17470218211044987 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 174702182110449

Author(s):

Keshu Xiang ◽

Hui Chang ◽

Lu Sun

Keyword(s):

Sentence Processing ◽

Semantic Representation ◽

Semantic Features ◽

Syntactic Priming ◽

Double Object ◽

Priming Effects ◽

Object Construction ◽

Syntactic Representation ◽

Target Experiment ◽

Prepositional Object

There is no consensus on whether syntactic representation is independent of semantic representation in Mandarin. In four experiments, we adopted the syntactic priming paradigm to investigate the independence of syntactic representation in Mandarin. Experiments 1 and 2 investigated the priming effects of double object construction (DO) and prepositional object construction (PO) with the ditransitive verb being repeated across the prime and target. Experiment 1 showed two-way priming effects of DO and PO. Experiment 2 showed that the syntactic priming effects persisted regardless of whether the semantic features (animacy of the Theme) matched across the prime and target or not. Furthermore, such effects persisted in Experiments 3 and 4 where the ditransitive verb across the prime and target was not repeated. Taken together, these findings provide evidence that syntactic/semantic independence is universal and favored over the traditional Chinese grammar account, which claims that the syntactic representation of Mandarin is not independent of the semantic representation.

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