Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension

Mante S Nieuwland; Stephen Politzer-Ahles; Evelien Heyselaar; Katrien Segaert; Emily Darley; Nina Kazanina; Sarah Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn; Federica Bartolozzi; Vita Kogan; Aine Ito; Diane Mézière; Dale J Barr; Guillaume A Rousselet; Heather J Ferguson; Simon Busch-Moreno; Xiao Fu; Jyrki Tuomainen; Eugenia Kulakova; E Matthew Husband; David I Donaldson; Zdenko Kohút; Shirley-Ann Rueschemeyer; Falk Huettig; Barbara G Shinn-Cunningham

doi:10.7554/eLife.33468

Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension

Mante S Nieuwland, Stephen Politzer-Ahles, Evelien Heyselaar, Katrien Segaert, Emily Darley, Nina Kazanina, Sarah Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn, Federica Bartolozzi, Vita Kogan, Aine Ito, Diane Mézière, Dale J Barr, Guillaume A Rousselet, Heather J Ferguson, Simon Busch-Moreno, Xiao Fu, Jyrki Tuomainen, Eugenia Kulakova, E Matthew Husband, David I DonaldsonZdenko Kohút, Shirley-Ann Rueschemeyer, Falk Huettig, Barbara G Shinn-Cunningham (Editor)

School of Psychology and Neuroscience

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Do people routinely pre-activate the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words? The most acclaimed evidence for phonological prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of electrical brain potentials (N400) to nouns and preceding articles by the probability that people use a word to continue the sentence fragment (‘cloze’). In our direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), pre-registered replication-analyses and exploratory Bayes factor analyses successfully replicated the noun-results but, crucially, not the article-results. Pre-registered single-trial analyses also yielded a statistically significant effect for the nouns but not the articles. Exploratory Bayesian single-trial analyses showed that the article-effect may be non-zero but is likely far smaller than originally reported and too small to observe without very large sample sizes. Our results do not support the view that readers routinely pre-activate the phonological form of predictable words.

Original language	English
Article number	e33468
Number of pages	24
Journal	eLife
Volume	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33468
Publication status	Published - 3 Apr 2018

Keywords

Language comprehension
Prediction
N400

Access to Document

10.7554/eLife.33468Licence: CC BY

Nieuwland_2018_eLife_Large-scale_CC
Copyright © 2018, Nieuwland et al. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
Final published version, 3.25 MBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

Nieuwland, M. S., Politzer-Ahles, S., Heyselaar, E., Segaert, K., Darley, E., Kazanina, N., Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn, S., Bartolozzi, F., Kogan, V., Ito, A., Mézière, D., Barr, D. J., Rousselet, G. A., Ferguson, H. J., Busch-Moreno, S., Fu, X., Tuomainen, J., Kulakova, E., Husband, E. M., ... Shinn-Cunningham, B. G. (Ed.) (2018). Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension. eLife, 7, Article e33468. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33468

@article{460d3ff581af4955b7f923dba27b4cd6,

title = "Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension",

abstract = "Do people routinely pre-activate the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words? The most acclaimed evidence for phonological prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of electrical brain potentials (N400) to nouns and preceding articles by the probability that people use a word to continue the sentence fragment ({\textquoteleft}cloze{\textquoteright}). In our direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), pre-registered replication-analyses and exploratory Bayes factor analyses successfully replicated the noun-results but, crucially, not the article-results. Pre-registered single-trial analyses also yielded a statistically significant effect for the nouns but not the articles. Exploratory Bayesian single-trial analyses showed that the article-effect may be non-zero but is likely far smaller than originally reported and too small to observe without very large sample sizes. Our results do not support the view that readers routinely pre-activate the phonological form of predictable words.",

keywords = "Language comprehension, Prediction, N400",

author = "Nieuwland, \{Mante S\} and Stephen Politzer-Ahles and Evelien Heyselaar and Katrien Segaert and Emily Darley and Nina Kazanina and \{Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn\}, Sarah and Federica Bartolozzi and Vita Kogan and Aine Ito and Diane M{\'e}zi{\`e}re and Barr, \{Dale J\} and Rousselet, \{Guillaume A\} and Ferguson, \{Heather J\} and Simon Busch-Moreno and Xiao Fu and Jyrki Tuomainen and Eugenia Kulakova and Husband, \{E Matthew\} and Donaldson, \{David I\} and Zdenko Koh{\'u}t and Shirley-Ann Rueschemeyer and Falk Huettig and Shinn-Cunningham, \{Barbara G\}",

note = "Funding: European Research Council ERC Starting grant 636458.",

year = "2018",

month = apr,

day = "3",

doi = "10.7554/eLife.33468",

language = "English",

volume = "7",

journal = "eLife",

issn = "2050-084X",

publisher = "eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd",

}

Nieuwland, MS, Politzer-Ahles, S, Heyselaar, E, Segaert, K, Darley, E, Kazanina, N, Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn, S, Bartolozzi, F, Kogan, V, Ito, A, Mézière, D, Barr, DJ, Rousselet, GA, Ferguson, HJ, Busch-Moreno, S, Fu, X, Tuomainen, J, Kulakova, E, Husband, EM, Donaldson, DI, Kohút, Z, Rueschemeyer, S-A, Huettig, F & Shinn-Cunningham, BG (ed.) 2018, 'Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension', eLife, vol. 7, e33468. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.33468

TY - JOUR

T1 - Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension

AU - Nieuwland, Mante S

AU - Politzer-Ahles, Stephen

AU - Heyselaar, Evelien

AU - Segaert, Katrien

AU - Darley, Emily

AU - Kazanina, Nina

AU - Von Grebmer Zu Wolfsthurn, Sarah

AU - Bartolozzi, Federica

AU - Kogan, Vita

AU - Ito, Aine

AU - Mézière, Diane

AU - Barr, Dale J

AU - Rousselet, Guillaume A

AU - Ferguson, Heather J

AU - Busch-Moreno, Simon

AU - Fu, Xiao

AU - Tuomainen, Jyrki

AU - Kulakova, Eugenia

AU - Husband, E Matthew

AU - Donaldson, David I

AU - Kohút, Zdenko

AU - Rueschemeyer, Shirley-Ann

AU - Huettig, Falk

A2 - Shinn-Cunningham, Barbara G

N1 - Funding: European Research Council ERC Starting grant 636458.

PY - 2018/4/3

Y1 - 2018/4/3

N2 - Do people routinely pre-activate the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words? The most acclaimed evidence for phonological prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of electrical brain potentials (N400) to nouns and preceding articles by the probability that people use a word to continue the sentence fragment (‘cloze’). In our direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), pre-registered replication-analyses and exploratory Bayes factor analyses successfully replicated the noun-results but, crucially, not the article-results. Pre-registered single-trial analyses also yielded a statistically significant effect for the nouns but not the articles. Exploratory Bayesian single-trial analyses showed that the article-effect may be non-zero but is likely far smaller than originally reported and too small to observe without very large sample sizes. Our results do not support the view that readers routinely pre-activate the phonological form of predictable words.

AB - Do people routinely pre-activate the meaning and even the phonological form of upcoming words? The most acclaimed evidence for phonological prediction comes from a 2005 Nature Neuroscience publication by DeLong, Urbach and Kutas, who observed a graded modulation of electrical brain potentials (N400) to nouns and preceding articles by the probability that people use a word to continue the sentence fragment (‘cloze’). In our direct replication study spanning 9 laboratories (N=334), pre-registered replication-analyses and exploratory Bayes factor analyses successfully replicated the noun-results but, crucially, not the article-results. Pre-registered single-trial analyses also yielded a statistically significant effect for the nouns but not the articles. Exploratory Bayesian single-trial analyses showed that the article-effect may be non-zero but is likely far smaller than originally reported and too small to observe without very large sample sizes. Our results do not support the view that readers routinely pre-activate the phonological form of predictable words.

KW - Language comprehension

KW - Prediction

KW - N400

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85049020933

U2 - 10.7554/eLife.33468

DO - 10.7554/eLife.33468

M3 - Article

SN - 2050-084X

VL - 7

JO - eLife

JF - eLife

M1 - e33468

ER -

Large-scale replication study reveals a limit on probabilistic prediction in language comprehension

Abstract

Keywords

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

David Donaldson