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Heritage Bilinguals Adaptively Tune Prediction of Grammatical Category Across Languages
Poster Session B, Wednesday, September 30, 4:30 - 6:30 pm, Wangari Maathai
Noemi X. Diaz1,2, Zoe Yang1, Matthew J. Traxler1,2, Tamara Y. Swaab1,2,3; 1Department of Psychology, University of California-Davis, 2Center for Mind and Brain UC Davis, 3School of Psychology and Center for Human Brain Health, University of Birmingham, UK
Efficient language comprehension depends on the brain’s ability to use prior context to prepare for upcoming input. Most evidence for predictive processing in language has focused on semantic or lexical expectancy, showing that predictable words are processed more easily than unexpected words. However, prediction may also operate at more abstract levels of representation. Here, we asked whether readers use sentence context to anticipate the grammatical category of an upcoming word, and whether this form of syntactic prediction is shaped by bilingual language experience. We examined word-category prediction using a gaze-contingent parafoveal preview paradigm adapted from Brothers and Traxler (2016). Spanish-English heritage bilinguals read sentences in both English and Spanish, and English monolinguals read sentences in English. Target words were either nouns or verbs. Before readers’ eyes crossed an invisible boundary, the parafoveal preview was either valid, matching the target word and its expected grammatical category, or invalid, mismatching the target and category. If readers use sentence context to pre-activate syntactic category information, valid previews should facilitate processing of target words, leading to increased skipping and reduced first-pass and total reading times. Data were analyzed using linear mixed-effects models for reading-time measures and generalized linear mixed-effects models for skipping. English monolinguals reading English (N = 30) showed significant valid-preview benefits across all three measures: higher skipping rates, shorter first-pass reading times, and shorter total reading times (all ps < .05). Spanish-English bilinguals reading English (N = 30) showed significant valid-preview benefits in first-pass and total reading times (ps < .05), but not skipping (ps > .05). When Spanish-English bilinguals read Spanish (N = 30), valid-preview benefits were significant only in first-pass reading time (p < .05), with no significant effects on skipping or total reading time (ps > .05). These findings suggest that the brain can use sentence context to prepare not only for likely meanings or specific words, but also for the syntactic category of upcoming input. However, this anticipatory use of syntactic information is modulated by language experience. For heritage bilinguals, predictive processing may be shaped by distributed experience across two languages, differences in formal reading experience, and differences in the reliability of syntactic cues across English and Spanish. English has a relatively strict word order, making sentence position a strong cue to the upcoming grammatical category. Spanish allows more flexible word order and provides richer morphological cues, which may reduce reliance on word-order-based category prediction during reading. Overall, the results support a view of language comprehension as an adaptive neurocognitive process in which prediction is not fixed or uniform, but calibrated to the statistics of the language being read and the reader’s language experience. Bilingualism, therefore, provides a powerful test case for understanding how the language system flexibly uses experience to guide anticipatory processing during real-time comprehension.
Topic Areas: Multilingualism,