Mouse cursor trajectories capture the flexible adaptivity of predictive sentence processing.

Abstract

Recent psycholinguistic findings raise fundamental questions about comprehenders' ability to rationally adapt their predictions during sentence processing. Two mouse cursor tracking experiments (each N = 85) assessed this adaptivity by manipulating the reliability of verb-based semantic cues. In Experiment 1, predictive mouse cursor movements to targets (e.g., bike) versus distractors (e.g., kite) were measured while participants heard equal proportions of nonpredictive (e.g., "spot … the bike"), predictive (e.g., "ride … the bike"), and antipredictive (e.g., "fly … the bike") sentences. In Experiment 2, participants heard equal proportions of nonpredictive and antipredictive sentences. Participants were observed to flexibly adapt their predictions, such that they disengaged prediction in Experiment 1 when verb-based cues were unreliable and as likely to be disconfirmed as confirmed, while they generated adapted predictions in Experiment 2 when verb-based cues were reliably disconfirmed. However, links to individual differences in cognitive control were not observed. These results are interpreted as supporting rational theoretical approaches. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).