The Prediction of Words and Word Phrases Throughout Written Discourse

Abstract

This study investigates the prediction of words and word phrases throughout a naturalistic written discourse. Participants predicted the final word or three-word phrase of each response by one speaker in a scripted two-person dialogue that was either presented in order or scrambled. We expected predictions to be more concurrent among participants than accurate, to be better for words than for phrases, and to improve over time with discourse context accumulation when presented in order. Our hypotheses were confirmed, although all conditions produced average prediction scores above chance levels and a strong item effect was found. These results highlight the significance of prediction and context in language comprehension, and possible neuroscientific and theoretical explanations are explored.