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

造句的一个重要部分是句法的构建。如何实现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）;两个句子表达的意思相似，但它们的句法结构不同。司机把车的整体给机修工看。1b.司机给机修工看了汽车的总体结构.研究表明，人们倾向于重复最近说过或听到的结构：他们倾向于在听到（2a）之后比（2b）更经常地产生（1a），并且在（2b）之后比（2a）更经常地产生（1b），这一发现被称为“结构启动”。医生把注射器给了护士。医生把注射器递给护士。结构启动可以告诉我们人们在语言产生过程中的结构表征。一个重要的发现是，当要产生的句子中的动词与前一个句子中的动词相同时，结构启动更强：“词汇提升效应”。例如，（1a）被“医生把注射器给护士看”比被（2a）更强烈地启动。目前关于词汇提升的起源以及它发生的确切环境有很多争论。基于初步研究，我们提出了一个层次解释，它假设层次关系在词汇提升中起着重要作用：一种结构表征（例如，“注射器到护士/护士注射器”）不仅与其自身的头部相关联（例如，“给”），但与任何头部的结构，其中的代表是嵌入式。这一解释对词汇的提升做出了新颖的预测。例如，尽管事实上（3a）中的“犹豫”不是“注射器给护士/护士注射器”的头部，但是当启动（3a）和要产生的目标（3b）包含相同动词时，启动应该更大（“犹豫”）比当动词是不同的（“决定”和“犹豫”），因为这些动词是更大的结构的头部“显示整体的技工/技工的整体”。3a.司机犹豫了一下/决定把车给机修工看。（质数）3b.医生犹豫着给...（目标）相比之下，（4）中“医生”的重复不应该导致词汇提升，因为它不是包含“注射器给护士/护士注射器”的结构的头部。4a.司机/医生给机修工看了这辆车。（质数）4 b.医生犹豫着给...（目标）这些预测与现有的账户不同。实验将研究哪种解释对句法结构的心理表征做出了正确的假设。我们将要求大约40名参与者大声朗读素数，如（3a，4a），然后提供完成目标，如（3b，4 b）。将测试大约40对prime-target对。一系列实验将解决几个主要问题。除了当重复单词是嵌入启动结构的结构的中心词时是否会发生词汇提升的问题之外，我们还将询问重复单词和启动结构之间的距离是否重要。其他问题将涉及提升的持续时间，以及它是否是由于从启动开始重复单词的外显记忆。这对于理解语言产生非常重要，并将有助于语言产生模型。到目前为止，研究还没有提供明确的答案的问题，什么结构信息存储和哪些词。我们的研究将有助于更好地理解人们是如何产生句法的，并有助于建立一个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.