ABSTRACT

Prediction facilitates word processing in the moment, but the longer-term consequences of prediction remain unclear. We investigated whether prediction error during language encoding enhances memory for words later on. German-speaking participants read sentences in which the gender marking of the pre-nominal article was consistent or inconsistent with the predictable noun. During subsequent word recognition, we probed participants’ recognition memory for predictable and unpredictable nouns. Our results indicate that individuals who demonstrated early prediction error during sentence reading, showed enhanced recognition memory for nouns overall. Results from an exploratory step-wise regression showed that prenominal prediction error and general reading speed were the best proxies for recognition memory. Hence, prediction error may facilitate recognition by furnishing memory traces built during initial reading of the sentences. Results are discussed in the light of hypotheses positing that predictable words show a memory disadvantage because they are processed less thoroughly.

摘要

预测在当下促进了文字处理，但预测的长期后果仍不清楚。我们调查了语言编码过程中的预测错误是否会增强以后的单词记忆。讲德语的参与者阅读的句子中，预冠词的性别标记与可预测名词一致或不一致。在随后的单词识别过程中，我们探究了参与者对可预测和不可预测名词的识别记忆。我们的结果表明，在句子阅读过程中表现出早期预测错误的个体，整体上表现出对名词的识别记忆增强。探索性逐步回归的结果表明，名词前预测误差和一般阅读速度是识别记忆的最佳指标。因此，预测错误可以通过提供在最初阅读句子时建立的记忆痕迹来促进识别。结果根据假设进行了讨论，假设可预测的单词显示出记忆缺陷，因为它们的处理不彻底。