TY - JOUR

T1 - Prediction failure blocks the use of local semantic context

AU - Husband, E. Matthew

AU - Bovolenta, Giulia

N1 - doi: 10.1080/23273798.2019.1651881

PY - 2020/4

Y1 - 2020/4

N2 - Before accumulation of recent experimental evidence, prediction was thought to be too prone to failure and thus too costly for language comprehension. Although prediction is now widely assumed, questions about the costs of prediction failure and recovery still remain. An event-related potentials study using highly constraining Italian sentence contexts addressed these questions. It manipulated how predictive local contexts were for target nouns after cueing comprehenders to the status of global sentential predictions with article gender congruence. Predictive local contexts reduced target noun N400 amplitude when the preceding article’s gender was congruent with global predictions, but not when gender was incongruent. This suggests that prediction failure impeded the facilitative use of local context for target nouns. Predictive local contexts following gender incongruence also elicited a broader late frontal positivity on target nouns, suggesting further recovery difficulties. Prediction failures, therefore, are not cost-free, and recovery from these failures requires further consideration.

AB - Before accumulation of recent experimental evidence, prediction was thought to be too prone to failure and thus too costly for language comprehension. Although prediction is now widely assumed, questions about the costs of prediction failure and recovery still remain. An event-related potentials study using highly constraining Italian sentence contexts addressed these questions. It manipulated how predictive local contexts were for target nouns after cueing comprehenders to the status of global sentential predictions with article gender congruence. Predictive local contexts reduced target noun N400 amplitude when the preceding article’s gender was congruent with global predictions, but not when gender was incongruent. This suggests that prediction failure impeded the facilitative use of local context for target nouns. Predictive local contexts following gender incongruence also elicited a broader late frontal positivity on target nouns, suggesting further recovery difficulties. Prediction failures, therefore, are not cost-free, and recovery from these failures requires further consideration.

U2 - 10.1080/23273798.2019.1651881

DO - 10.1080/23273798.2019.1651881

M3 - Article

VL - 35

SP - 273

EP - 291

JO - Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

JF - Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

SN - 2327-3798

IS - 3

ER -