NotesFAQContact Us
Collection
Advanced
Search Tips
Back to results
Peer reviewed Peer reviewed
Direct linkDirect link
ERIC Number: EJ1055976
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2013-May
Pages: 8
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: ISSN-0278-7393
EISSN: N/A
To Err Is Human; To Structurally Prime from Errors Is Also Human
Slevc, L. Robert; Ferreira, Victor S.
Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, v39 n3 p985-992 May 2013
Natural language contains disfluencies and errors. Do listeners simply discard information that was clearly produced in error, or can erroneous material persist to affect subsequent processing? Two experiments explored this question using a structural priming paradigm. Speakers described dative-eliciting pictures after hearing prime sentences that either were disfluent but with a consistent dative structure or were sentences that began as datives but were corrected to transitives (e.g., "The mechanic is giving the new part… uh… is recognizing the new part"). If an erroneous and corrected sentence fragment is discarded, then the original form of an ultimately transitive utterance should not influence future production. However, if the syntactic parse of an error is not discarded, then it should influence speakers' subsequent choice of syntactic structure. In both experiments, structural priming was significantly reduced when primes were corrected to a non-dative structure (relative to disfluent but ultimately dative primes). However, target descriptions did show an influence from corrected errors when the prime and target shared the same verb. Thus, a parse mapping a verb to a specific argument structure can persist despite being explicitly marked as an error, reflecting the incremental and predictive nature of comprehension.
American Psychological Association. Journals Department, 750 First Street NE, Washington, DC 20002. Tel: 800-374-2721; Tel: 202-336-5510; Fax: 202-336-5502; e-mail: order@apa.org; Web site: http://www.apa.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health (DHHS)
Authoring Institution: N/A
Identifiers - Location: California; Maryland
Grant or Contract Numbers: HD 051030