Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： In sentence production, syntactic priming effect refers to a phenomenon that speakers or writers tend to reuse syntactic structures that they have recently processed, and the repeated syntactic structures elicit shorter sentence production latencies than the novel ones. Different theories have been proposed to account for the syntactic priming effect. Among them, both the Residual Activation Theory and the Implicit Learning Theory aim to address speakers’ syntactic choices ratio, but with different theoretical bases on memory and learning, respectively. In addition, the Two-stage Competition Model attempts to explain the syntactic priming in syntactic choices ratio as well as production latencies. Experimental works have demonstrated that syntactic priming stably exists even after excluding the semantic and lexical relevance between the prime sentence and the target sentence, which suggests that syntactic priming actually reflects syntactic processing in sentence production. In the present study, we explored the cognitive mechanism of syntactic processing in Mandarin spoken sentence production using a syntactic priming paradigm. In this paradigm, participants were firstly instructed to read the prime sentence aloud and then judge whether the sentence’s description matched the prime picture. Then, participants were instructed to describe the target picture using the verb at the bottom. The dependent variables included not only the syntactic choices ratio but also the sentence production latencies. In experiment 1, we manipulated syntax structure of the prime sentence (double object dative vs. prepositional object dative) and verb overlap between the prime sentence and the target sentence (no verb overlap vs. verb overlap). In experiment 2, we added a within-subjects factor of lag by manipulating whether the target picture was presented immediately after the prime sentence, or after two or six intervening descriptions (Lag 0 vs. Lag 2 vs. Lag 6). For the syntactic choices ratio, results indicated that participants produced significantly more double-object sentences following double-object primes than following prepositional-object primes, and the syntactic priming was much stronger in the verb overlapping condition than in the verb non-overlapping condition. Furthermore, we found that the syntactic priming effect persisted when the prime sentence and the target sentence did not share the verb, whereas the lexical boost effect (i.e. a stronger syntactic priming effect caused by the verb overlap between the prime sentence and the target sentence) disappeared after six intervening descriptions. For the sentence production latencies, results indicated that the repetition of syntactic structures significantly speeded up target sentence production. Besides, we found that verb overlap slowed down the sentence production as the lag between primes and targets increased (also known as the lexical suppression effect) only when the syntactic structure was repeated. Unifying the different findings in the syntactic choices ratio and the production latencies, we suggest that, apart from the stage where a sentence is planned specifically, sentence production comprises a syntactic construction stage in which speakers map the thematic roles to one structural alternative. These findings are consistent with the Two-stage Competition Model. In methodology, we also suggest that syntactic choices ratio is sensitive to sentence generation process.
Subjects: Psychology >> Social Psychology submitted time 2023-03-27 Cooperative journals: 《心理学报》
Abstract： Language is a complex lifelong faculty supported by the general cognitive system as well as the dynamic interactions between comprehension and production processes within the language system. Studies reported that while normal aging impairs important aspects of language production, most core processes of comprehension are robust. However, accumulating evidence suggests a decline in comprehension when comparing older adults with young ones. Thus it is plausible to assume that there might be a general degradation in older adults’ language capacity. The information-universal theories assume that the aging of language is contributed by the declines in general cognitive abilities including processing speed, working memory and inhibitory function, while the information-specific theories highlight the unique changes of linguistic representations and their connections in the brain, which may result in decreased interplay between comprehension and production. The current study investigated the relationships among language comprehension capacity, production capacity, and general cognitive abilities, and explored the factors that influence the aging of language processing. We employed two groups of participants (103 young adults and 114 older adults), and measured their general cognitive abilities and language capacities with different tasks. General cognitive abilities were assessed in three dimensions: processing speed by color judgment and numerical judgment tasks, working memory by digit span forward and backward tasks, and inhibitory function by STROOP color-word judgment task. Language comprehension and production capacities were measured at word, sentence and discourse processing levels, respectively. We first compared the performance between the two age groups, and then conducted hierarchical regression analyses to examine the contributions of information-universal and information-specific factors to language performance. Results showed lower scores in older adults than their young counterparts on all measures. The first hierarchical regression analyses revealed that there were differences between the older and the young groups, which presented not only in the contributions of general cognitive abilities to language capacities but also in the contributions of comprehension and production capacities to each other. For word processing, young adults’ performance was predicted by both general cognitive abilities and the other language capacities, while the former did not predict older adults’ performance; for sentence processing, young adults’ performance was predicted by general cognitive abilities (only in comprehension) and the other language capacities, while neither of them explained older adults’ performance; for discourse processing, young adults’ comprehension scores were predicted by their production capacity, while older adults’ scores of comprehension and production were predicted by their general cognitive abilities and comprehension capacity respectively. Results of the second hierarchical regression analyses indicated that both general cognitive abilities and the other language capacities contributed to the group differences in language performance, and the contributions of the former were larger than those of the latter. In sum, older adults show an overall age-related decline in general cognitive abilities, language comprehension and production capacities. We suggest that the aging of language processing is subject to both the information- universal factor as well as the information-specific factor, with the former reflected as the general degradation in cognitive abilities and the latter related to specific changes in the architecture of language system.
Subjects: Psychology >> Cognitive Psychology submitted time 2019-11-27
Abstract： In sentence production, syntactic priming, syntactic priming effectrefers to a phenomenon that speakers or writers tend to reuse syntactic structures that they have recently processed, and the repeated syntactic structures elicit shorter sentence production latencies than the novel ones. Different theories have been proposed to account for the syntactic priming effect. Among them, both the Residual Activation Theory and the Implicit Learning Theory aim to address speakers’ syntactic choices ratio, but with different theoretical bases on memory and learning, respectively. In addition, the Two-stage Competition Model attempts to explain the syntactic priming in syntactic choices ratio as well as production latencies. Experimental works have demonstrated that syntactic priming stably exists even after excluding the semantic and lexical relevance between the prime sentence and the target sentence, which suggests that syntactic priming actually reflects syntactic processing in sentence production. In the present study, we explored the cognitive mechanism of syntactic processing in Mandarin spoken sentence production using a syntactic priming paradigm. In this paradigm, participants were firstly instructed to read the prime sentence aloud and then judge whether the sentence’s description matched the prime picture. Then, participants were instructed to describe the target picture using the verb at the bottom. The dependent variables included not only the syntactic choices ratio but also the sentence production latencies. In experiment 1, we manipulated syntax structure of the prime sentence (double object dative vs. prepositional object dative) and verb overlap between the prime sentence and the target sentence (no verb overlap vs. verb overlap). In experiment 2, we added a within-subjects factor of lag by manipulating whether the target picture was presented immediately after the prime sentence, or after two or six intervening descriptions (Lag 0 vs. Lag 2 vs. Lag 6). For the syntactic choices ratio, results indicated that participants produced significantly more double-object sentences following double-object primes than following prepositional-object primes, and the syntactic priming was much stronger in the verb overlapping condition than in the verb non-overlapping condition. Furthermore, we found that the syntactic priming effect persisted when the prime sentence and the target sentence did not share the verb, whereas the lexical boost effect (i.e. a stronger syntactic priming effect caused by the verb overlap between the prime sentence and the target sentence) disappeared after six intervening descriptions. For the sentence production latencies, results indicated that the repetition of syntactic structures significantly speeded up target sentence production. Besides, we found that verb overlap slowed down the sentence production as the lag between primes and targets increased (also known as the lexical suppression effect) only when the syntactic structure was repeated. Unifying the different findings in the syntactic choices ratio and the production latencies, we suggest that, apart from the stage where a sentence is planned specifically, sentence production comprises a syntactic construction stage in which speakers map the thematic roles to one structural alternative. These findings are consistent with the Two-stage Competition Model. In methodology, we also suggest that syntactic choices ratio is sensitive to sentence generation process. "
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