Psychological and Neural Mechanisms of Language Comprehension

Our research aims to elucidate the cognitive and neural mechanisms that are involved in the real-time comprehension of words, sentences, and discourse, and on how these different levels of language information interact in real-time during comprehension of spoken and written language input.

  • Prediction During Comprehension

  • Theories of language comprehension assign a critical role to anticipatory processes. In our studies, we attempt to 1) isolate the effects of prediction from other possible factors that influence on-line language processing; 2) model individual differences in prediction during comprehension as a function of measures of cognitive control, working memory and language experience; 3) examine the content of the anticipated information. We examine these questions in monolingual and bilingual young adults and elderly populations.
     

    Publications

    Brothers, T., Swaab, T.Y., and Traxler, M. (2015). Effect of prediction and contextual support on lexical processing: Prediction takes precedence. Cognition, 136, 135–149

    Boudewyn, M.A., Long, D.L. & Swaab, T.Y. (2015). Graded Expectations: Predictive Processing and the Adjustment of Expectations during Spoken Language Comprehension. Cognitive, Affective and Behavioral Neuroscience. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 15 (3), 607-624

    Brothers, T., Swaab, T.Y., & Traxler, M.J., (2017). Goals and strategies influence lexical prediction during sentence comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 93, 203-216.

    Choi, W., Lowder, M.W., Ferreira, F., Swaab, T.Y. &  Henderson, J.M.  (2017). Effects of word predictability and preview lexicality on eye movements during reading:  A comparison between young and older adults. Psychology and Aging, 32(3), 232-242.

    Li X, Zhang Y, Xia J, Swaab T.Y. (2017). Internal mechanisms underlying anticipatory language processing: Evidence from event-related-potentials and neural oscillations. Neuropsychologia, 102, 70-81.

    Dave, S., Brothers, T. & Swaab, T.Y. (2018). 1/f Neural Noise and Electrophysiological Indices of Contextual Prediction in Normative Aging. Brain Research. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2018.04.007.

    Dave, S., Brothers, T., Traxler, M.J., Henderson, J.M., Ferreira, F. & Swaab, T.Y. (2018). Electrophysiological Evidence for Preserved Primacy of Lexical Prediction in Normative Aging. Neuropsychologia, 117, 135-147

    Boudewyn, M.A., Blalock, A. Long, D.L.  & Swaab, T.Y (2019). Adaptation to animacy violations during listening comprehension. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience 19 (5), 1247-1258

    Brothers, T., Dave, S., Hoversten, L.J., Traxler, M.J. & Swaab, T.Y. (2019). Flexible predictions during listening comprehension: Speaker reliability affects anticipatory processes. Neuropsychologia, 135, 107225

    Dave, S., Brothers, T., Hoversten L., Traxler, M.J., & Swaab, T.Y. (2021). Cognitive control mediates age-related changes in flexible anticipatory processing during listening comprehension. Brain Research.

  • Syntactic Priming

  • In our syntactic priming experiments, comprehenders read a prime sentence immediately before they read a target sentence.  We manipulate the relationship between the prime and the target sentence and assess comprehenders’ response to the target. Our results show that processing a prime sentence speeds processing of a target sentence if the two have similar syntactic structures and if a critical verb is repeated across the prime and the target. These results indicate that syntactic structure information is pre-compiled and stored in long term memory.

    Publications

    Boudewyn, M.A., Zirnstein, M., Swaab, T.Y., & Traxler, M.J. (2014). Priming Prepositional Phrase Attachment: Evidence from Eye-tracking and ERPs. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 467(3), 424-54.

    Tooley, K.M., Swaab, T.Y., Boudewyn, M.A., Zirnstein, M. & Traxler, M.J. (2013). Evidence for Priming across Intervening Sentences during Online Sentence Comprehension. Language and Cognitive Processes, 129(3), 289-311.

    Tooley, K., Traxler, M. & Swaab, T.Y. (2009). Electrophysiological and Behavioral Evidence of Syntactic Priming in Sentence Comprehension. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Language, Memory and Cognition, 35, 19-45.

    Ledoux, K., Gordon, P.C., Camblin, C.C. & Swaab, T.Y (2007). Coreference and lexical repetition: Neural mechanisms of discourse integration. Memory and Cognition. 35 (4), 801-815

  • Individual Differences in Language Processing
  • We examine individual differences in listening comprehension during processing of sentence and discourse contexts as a function of working memory capacity, cognitive control and language experience. Previous research has shown that language experience instead of working memory capacity is the best predictor of text comprehension during reading. Thus far, our research suggests that working memory capacity may play an important role during spoken language comprehension.
  • Bilingual Experience in Language Prediction
  • Bilinguals experience language differently than monolinguals. For instance, two first-year undergraduates at UC Davis might both attend classes in English, but whereas the monolingual student uses English exclusively, the bilingual student might engage in various activities in multiple languages. This dual-language engagement could influence their cognitive processing, particularly in how they predict upcoming words based on prior experiences.

    Our research investigates how bilingualism affects language prediction and processing. Previous studies indicate that bilinguals may not predict words in their second language as monolinguals do, but it remains uncertain whether this is due to the differences between a first and a second language or between having one language and having multiple languages. Moreover, the mechanisms behind these differences are not well understood. To investigate these differences, we conduct EEG studies with a wide range of bilinguals and monolinguals to examine differences in prediction sensitive components (such as N400) and aperiodic measures.
  • Attention during Language Processing

  • Attention is not uniform during language comprehension. By measuring EEG correlates of attention, such as alpha amplitude modulations, we study what leads people to pay more attention to some words than others, and what happens when we start to mind-wander. Our findings suggest that during periods of decreased attention, linguistic information is processed more shallowly and is less likely to be remembered.

    Boudewyn, M. A., Long, D. L., Traxler, M. J., Lesh, T. A., Dave, S., Mangun, G. R., ... & Swaab, T. Y. (2015). Sensitivity to referential ambiguity in discourse: The role of attention, working memory, and verbal ability. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 27(12), 2309-2323.

    Beier, E., Breska, A., Miller, L., Oganian, Y., Mangun, G., & Swaab, T.Y. (2023). The role of anticipatory attention during spoken language comprehension and its encoding in alpha amplitude modulations. Poster presented at 30th Anniversary Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society (CNS 2023), San Francisco, CA, USA. DOI: 21.11116/0000-000C-EA0A-2

  • Memory and Language
  • We are interested in the nexus between memory and language. Specifically, one of the projects we are pursuing asks about the nature of false memories in bilinguals and whether these false memory representations differ from those of monolinguals.