biology

Prediction in language comprehension

Prediction in language comprehension is a biology topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Prediction in language comprehension rather than just read about it. In short: Linguistic prediction is a phenomenon in psycholinguistics occurring whenever information about a word or other linguistic unit is activated before that unit is actually encountered. Evidence from eyetracking, event-related potentials, and other experimental methods indicates that in addition to integrating each subsequent word into the context formed by previously encountered words, language users may, under certai…

Key takeaways

Prediction in language comprehension belongs to biology; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Prediction in language comprehension to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Prediction in language comprehension from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Linguistic prediction is a phenomenon in psycholinguistics occurring whenever information about a word or other linguistic unit is activated before that unit is actually encountered. Evidence from eyetracking, event-related potentials, and other experimental methods indicates that in addition to integrating each subsequent word into the context formed by previously encountered words, language users may, under certain conditions, try to predict upcoming words. In particular, prediction seems to occur regularly when the context of a sentence greatly limits the possible words that have not yet been revealed. For instance, a person listening to a sentence like, "In the summer it is hot, and in the winter it is..." would be highly likely to predict the sentence completion "cold" in advance of actually hearing it. A form of prediction is also thought to occur in some types of lexical priming, a phenomenon whereby a word becomes easier to process if it is preceded by a related word. Linguistic prediction is an active area of research in psycholinguistics and cognitive neuroscience.

Evidence from eyetracking

Visual world paradigms In the eyetracking visual world paradigm, experimental subjects listen to a sentence while staring at an array of pictures on a computer monitor. Their eye movements are recorded, allowing the experimenter to understand how language influences eye movements toward pictures related to the content of the sentence. Experiments of this type have shown that while listening to the verb in a sentence, comprehenders anticipatorily move their eyes to the picture of the verb's likely direct object (e.g. "cake" rather than "ball" while hearing, "The boy will eat..."). Subsequent investigations using the same experimental setup showed that the verb's subject can also determine which object comprehenders anticipate (e.g., comprehenders look at the merry-go-round rather than the motorcycle while hearing, "The little girl will ride..."). In short, comprehenders use the information in the sentence context to predict the meanings of upcoming words. In these experiments, comprehenders used the verb and its subject to activate information about the verb's direct object before hearing that word. However, another experiment has shown that in a language with more flexible word order (German), comprehenders can also use context to predict the sentence's subject.

Natural reading Eyetracking technology has also been used to monitor readers' eye movements while they read text on a computer screen. Data from this kind of experiment has supported the hypothesis that readers use contextual information to predict upcoming words during natural reading. Specifically, readers fixate their eyes on a word for a shorter time when the word occurs in a moderately or highly constraining context, compared to the same word in an unconstrained context. This is true regardless of the word's frequency or length. Readers are also more likely to skip over a word in a highly constraining context only. Subsequent investigations of reading in the Chinese logographic script have shown that despite the large differences between the Chinese and English orthographies, readers exploit contextual information for prediction in similar ways, with the exception that Chinese readers were more likely to skip words in moderately constraining contexts. Computational models of eye movements during reading, which model data related to word predictability, include Reichle and colleagues' E-Z Reader model and Engbert and colleagues' SWIFT model.

Evidence from event-related potentials

M100 The M100 discussed here is the magnetic equivalent of the visual N1 potential—an event-related potential linked to visual processing and attention. The M100 was also linked to prediction in language comprehension in a series of event-related magnetoencephalography (MEG) experiments. In these experiments, participants read words whose visual forms were either predictable or unpredictable based on prior linguistic context or based on a recently seen picture. The predictability of the word's visual form (but not the predictability of its meaning) affected the amplitude of the M100. There is ongoing controversy about whether this M100 effect is related to the early left anterior negativity (eLAN), an event-related potential response to words that is theorized to reflect the brain's assignment of local phrase structure.

P2 The P2 component is generally thought to reflect higher-order perceptual processing and its modulation by attention. However, it has also been linked to prediction of visual word forms. The P2 response to words in highly constraining contexts is often larger than the P2 response to words in less constraining contexts. When experimental participants read words that are presented to the left or right of their visual fixation (stimulating the opposite hemisphere of the brain first), the larger P2 for words in highly constraining contexts is observed only for right visual field presentation (targeting left hemisphere). This is consistent with the PARLO hypothesis that linguistic prediction is mainly a function of the left hemisphere, discussed below.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Prediction in language comprehension

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Prediction in language comprehension claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In biology, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Prediction in language comprehension before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Prediction in language comprehension ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Prediction in language comprehension

In research: Prediction in language comprehension appears in biology research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Prediction in language comprehension in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Prediction in language comprehension is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Neurolinguistics, Psycholinguistics, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Prediction in language comprehension outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Prediction in language comprehension in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Prediction in language comprehension means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Prediction in language comprehension out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Prediction in language comprehension in simple terms?

Why does Prediction in language comprehension matter?

Because it connects several biology ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Prediction in language comprehension?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Prediction in language comprehension.