A parallel architecture perspective on pre-activation and prediction in language processing

Cognition, vol. 224, pp. 105050

Abstract

A recent trend in psycholinguistic research has been to posit prediction as an essential function of language processing. The present paper develops a linguistic perspective on viewing prediction in terms of pre-activation. We describe what predictions are and how they are produced. Our basic premises are that (a) no prediction can be made without knowledge to support it; and (b) it is therefore necessary to characterize the precise form of that knowledge, as revealed by a suitable theory of linguistic representations. We describe the Parallel Architecture (PA: Jackendoff, 2002; Jackendoff & Audring, 2020), which makes explicit our commitments about linguistic representations, and we develop an account of processing based on these representations. Crucial to our account is that what have been traditionally treated as derivational rules of grammar are formalized by the PA as lexical items, encoded in the same format as words. We then present a theory of prediction in these terms: linguistic input activates lexical items whose beginning (or incipit) corresponds to the input encountered so far; and prediction amounts to pre-activation of the as yet unheard parts of those lexical items (the remainder). Thus the generation of predictions is a natural byproduct of processing linguistic representations. We conclude that the PA perspective on pre-activation provides a plausible account of prediction in language processing that bridges linguistic and psycholinguistic theorizing.

Authors 3

1. Falk Huettig corresponding

   Radboud University Nijmegen · Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics · Center for Language Studies

   Affiliation as printed

   Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands; Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands. Electronic address: falk.huettig@mpi.nl

   Centre for Language Studies, Radboud University, Nijmegen, Netherlands

   Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics, Nijmegen, Netherlands

2. Jenny Audring Aachen

   Leiden University

   Affiliation as printed

   Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Arsenaalstraat 1, 2311 CT Leiden, Netherlands. Electronic address: j.audring@hum.leidenuniv.nl

   Leiden University Centre for Linguistics, Arsenaalstraat 1, 2311 CT Leiden, Netherlands

3. Ray S. Jackendoff

   Tufts University · Massachusetts Institute of Technology

   Affiliation as printed

   MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA; Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA. Electronic address: ray.jackendoff@tufts.edu

   MIT Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA, USA

   Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA