Developmental trajectories of predictive mechanisms in language comprehension.

Abstract

In this investigation, we delved into the developmental progression of two predictive mechanisms in language comprehension: the associative (Mechanism 1) and the context- and intention-dependent (Mechanism 2). Across three experiments, we assessed the ability to predict semantic content based on syntactic cues among toddlers and adults. Participants were exposed to correction (e.g., "In the yard, I saw a dog, no, a rabbit") and coordination (e.g., "In the yard, I saw a dog and a rabbit") sentences. Concurrently, they viewed four competing images: two nouns included in the sentences, an associative distractor, and an unrelated distractor. Experiment 1A revealed that, unlike adults, 30-month-old toddlers predominantly anticipated the associative distractor in coordinated sentences but not in the correction ones. Experiment 1B expanded the age range to include preschoolers and school-aged children, echoing the findings of Experiment 1A. Notably, as age increased, predictions began to mirror adultlike tendencies. Experiment 2, which included a larger prediction window, evaluated 24- and 30-month-old toddlers. The results revealed that toddlers generated predictive behaviors in both sentence types. However, in contrast to their younger counterparts, the older group demonstrated faster predictive responses in coordination compared to correction contexts. Collectively, our experiments underscore that predictions are predominantly steered by Mechanism 1 during the initial stages of development; however, as children age, their predictive strategies rely more on the context and speakers' intentions. We postulate that the evolution of Mechanism 2 hinges on the emergence of inhibitory mechanisms that modulate the activation driven by Mechanism 1. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).