Younger adults may be faster at making semantic predictions, but older adults are more efficient.

While there is strong evidence that younger adults use contextual information to generate semantic predictions, findings from older adults are less clear. Age affects cognition in a variety of different ways that may impact prediction mechanisms; while the efficiency of memory systems and processing speed decrease, life experience leads to complementary increases in vocabulary size, real-world knowledge, and even inhibitory control. Using the visual world paradigm, we tested prediction in younger ( = 30, between 18 and 35 years of age) and older adults ( = 30, between 53 and 78 years of age).

Is there a cost when predictions are not met? A VWP study investigating L1 and L2 speakers.

Research has found that both first language (L1) and second language (L2) speakers make predictions about upcoming linguistic information, with predictive behaviour being impacted by individual differences and methodological factors. However, it is not clear whether a cost is incurred when a prediction is made, but not met. L2 speakers have less experience with their L2 and parsing can be cognitively demanding, which together may lead L2 speakers to incur prediction costs differently relative to L1 speakers.

Uses of Linguistic Context in Speech Listening: Does Acquired Hearing Loss Lead to Reduced Engagement of Prediction?

Research investigating the complex interplay of cognitive mechanisms involved in speech listening for people with hearing loss has been gaining prominence. In particular, linguistic context allows the use of several cognitive mechanisms that are not well distinguished in hearing science, namely those relating to "postdiction", "integration", and "prediction". We offer the perspective that an unacknowledged impact of hearing loss is the differential use of predictive mechanisms relative to age-matched individuals with normal hearing.

Cross-linguistic differences in parafoveal semantic and orthographic processing.

In this study we investigated parafoveal processing by L1 and late L2 speakers of English (L1 German) while reading in English. We hypothesized that L2ers would make use of semantic and orthographic information parafoveally. Using the gaze contingent boundary paradigm, we manipulated six parafoveal masks in a sentence (Mark found th*e wood for the fire; * indicates the invisible boundary): identical word mask (wood), English orthographic mask (wook), English string mask (zwwl), German mask (holz), German orthographic mask (holn), and German string mask (kxfs).

The impact of uninformative parafoveal masks on L1 and late L2 speakers.

Much reading research has found that informative parafoveal masks lead to a reading benefit for native speakers (see 1). However, little reading research has tested the impact of uninformative parafoveal masks during reading. Additionally, parafoveal processing research is primarily restricted to native speakers.

Effects of speech rate on anticipatory eye movements in the visual world paradigm: Evidence from aging, native, and non-native language processing.

Research has shown that suprasegmental cues in conjunction with visual context can lead to anticipatory (or predictive) eye movements. However, the impact of speech rate on anticipatory eye movements has received little empirical attention. The purpose of the current study was twofold.