An Experimental Investigation of Syntactic Priming and the Lexical Boost in Language Production

造句的一个重要部分就是句法的构建。如何做到这一点是语言产出研究中的一个基本问题。人们通常可以选择如何表达信息。例如，他们可以说(1a)或(1b)；这两个句子表达的意思相似，但它们的句法结构不同。司机给技工看了整车。1B.司机向技工展示了整车的全貌。研究表明，人们倾向于重复最近说过的或听过的结构：他们倾向于在听到(2a)后产生(1a)比(2b)更频繁，(1b)比(2a)更频繁地在(2b)之后产生，这一发现被称为“结构性启动”。医生把注射器给了护士。医生给了护士注射器。结构启动可以告诉我们人们在语言产生过程中接触到的结构表征。一个关键的发现是，当要产生的句子中的动词与前一句中的动词相同时，结构启动作用更强：“词汇促进效应”。例如，(1a)比(2a)更倾向于“医生把注射器给护士看”。在前人研究的基础上，我们提出了一个层次化的解释，认为层级关系在词汇促进中起着重要的作用：结构表征(例如，“给护士的注射器/护士的注射器”)不仅与它自己的头部有关(例如，“给予”)，而且与嵌入表征的结构的任何头部有关。这一描述对词汇的提升做出了新奇的预测。例如，尽管(3a)中的“犹豫不决”不是“给护士的注射器/护士的注射器”的中心词，但当主语(3a)和待产生的目标(3b)包含相同的动词(“犹豫不决”)时，启动应该比动词不同(“已决定的”和“犹豫的”)时更大，因为这些动词是较大结构的中心词“向机械师/机械师显示总体”。司机犹豫了一下[决定]要不要把整车展示给技工看。(一)3b.医生犹豫要不要给..。(目标)相反，重复第(4)款中的“医生”不应导致词汇增加，因为它不是包含“给护士的注射器/护士的注射器”的结构的中心部分。司机/医生向机修工/机修工展示了整车的整体情况。(主要)4b.医生犹豫要不要给..。(目标)这些预测与现有账户不同。这些实验将调查哪一种解释对句法结构如何在心理上呈现做出了正确的假设。我们将让大约40名参与者大声朗读(3a，4a)等质数，然后完成(3b，4b)等目标。大约40对素数-目标对将进行测试。一系列实验将解决几个主要问题。除了当重复的单词是嵌入了启动结构的结构的中心时是否发生词汇促进的问题外，我们还会问重复单词和启动结构之间的距离是否重要。其他问题将涉及提振的持续时间，以及是否由于对质数中重复的单词的明确记忆。这对于理解语言产出很重要，并将有助于语言产出模型的建立。到目前为止，研究还没有对什么结构信息和哪些词存储的问题提供明确的答案。我们的研究将有助于更好地理解人们是如何产生句法的，并有助于建立更精确的结构启动模型。

An essential part of producing a sentence involves the construction of its syntax. How this is done is a fundamental question in language production research. People often have choices how to express a message. For example, they can say either (1a) or (1b); both sentences express a similar meaning, but their syntactic structures are different.1a. The driver showed the overall to the mechanic. 1b. The driver showed the mechanic the overall. Research has shown that people tend to repeat recently spoken or heard structures: they tend to produce (1a) more often after hearing (2a) than (2b), and (1b) more often after (2b) than (2a), a finding termed "structural priming".2a. The doctor gave the syringe to the nurse.2b. The doctor gave the nurse the syringe.Structural priming can inform us about the structural representations that people access during language production. One critical finding is that structural priming is stronger when the verb in the sentence to be produced is the same as in the previous sentence: the "lexical boost effect". For example, (1a) is more strongly primed by "The doctor showed the syringe to the nurse" than by (2a). There is currently much debate about the origin of the lexical boost and the precise circumstances under which it occurs.Based on pilot studies, we suggest a hierarchical account, which assumes that hierarchical relations play an important role in the lexical boost: a structural representation (e.g., "the syringe to the nurse/the nurse the syringe") is associated not just with its own head (e.g., "gave"), but with any head of a structure in which the representation is embedded. This account makes novel predictions about the lexical boost. For example, despite the fact that "hesitated" in (3a) is not the head of "the syringe to the nurse/the nurse the syringe", priming should be larger when the prime (3a) and target to be produced (3b) contain the same verb ("hesitated") than when the verbs are different ("decided" and "hesitated"), because these verbs are the head of the larger structure "to show the overall to the mechanic/the mechanic the overall".3a. The driver hesitated/decided to show the overall to the mechanic/the mechanic the overall. (prime)3b. The doctor hesitated to give ... (target)In contrast, repetition of "doctor" in (4) should not result in a lexical boost, because it is not the head of a structure that contains "the syringe to the nurse/the nurse the syringe".4a. The driver/doctor showed the overall to the mechanic/the mechanic the overall. (prime)4b. The doctor hesitated to give ... (target)These predictions are different from existing accounts. The experiments will investigate which account makes the correct assumptions about how syntactic structures are mentally represented. We will ask approximately 40 participants to read aloud primes such as (3a, 4a) and then to provide a completion to targets such as (3b, 4b). Around 40 prime-target pairs will be tested. A series of experiments will address several major questions. In addition to the question of whether the lexical boost occurs when the repeated word is the head of a structure in which the primed structure is embedded, we will ask whether the distance between the repeated word and the primed structure matters. Other questions will concern the duration of the boost and whether it is due to explicit memory of the repeated word from the prime. This is important for understanding language production and will contribute to language production models. Research so far has not provided clear answers to the question of what structural information is stored and with which words. Our study will lead to a better understanding of how people produce syntax and contribute to a more precise model of structural priming.