Holly P Branigan

Janet F Mclean

martin.pickering@ed.ac.uk Martin J Pickering

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Effects of dialogue structure on the activation of syntactic information
Martin J. Pickering (martin.pickering@ed.ac.uk)
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
7 George Square, Edinburgh EH10 5NL, UK
Holly P. Branigan (holly.branigan@ed.ac.uk)
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
7 George Square, Edinburgh EH10 5NL, UK
Janet F. McLean (janet.mclean@ed.ac.uk)
Department of Psychology, University of Edinburgh,
7 George Square, Edinburgh EH10 5NL, UK
Many theories assume that language production involves the
activation of linguistic information (e.g., Dell, 1986; Levelt,
Roelofs & Meyer, 1999). In such models, prior context can
affect processing by altering the relative activation of
different elements. Production and self-monitoring of their
own utterances, or comprehension of others’ utterances,
may all activate speakers’ linguistic representations to some
degree. We report three experiments that investigate how
prior context can affect syntactic activation in dialogue.
We identify three accounts of syntactic activation in
production. Each makes different predictions regarding
syntactic priming (re-use of particular structures) (Bock,
1986). Under one account, distinct syntactic information is
activated in production and comprehension (Bock &
Loebell, 1990). This predicts production-to-production
priming but not comprehension-to-production priming.
Evidence from sentence recall (Potter & Lombardi, 1998)
and picture description in dialogue (Branigan, Pickering &
Cleland, 2000) argues against this account, but is consistent
with a model where production and comprehension activate
shared syntactic information in the same way, and to the
same extent. This model predicts equivalent comprehension-
to-production and production-to-production priming. In a
third model, syntactic information is shared, but the degree
of activation is not equivalent: production involves both
production processes and the comprehension processes
implicated in self-monitoring (Postma, 2000), giving rise to
stronger activation, whereas comprehension involves the
activation of information by comprehension processes only.
This model predicts stronger production-to-production than
comprehension-to-production priming.
All three experiments used a picture description task. In
Experiment 1, participants produced picture descriptions
after either producing or comprehending another
description. Participants produced more Prepositional
Object (PO) descriptions like The chef handing the jug to
the swimmer after producing or comprehending a PO
description, and more Double Object (DO) descriptions like
The chef handing the swimmer the jug after a DO
description. However, the self-priming effect was stronger
than the other-priming effect. This is compatible with a
model in which production involves syntactic activation
from both production and self-monitoring processes.
However, linguistic behavior in dialogues is influenced by
interactivity (Fay, Garrod & Carletta, 2000): Could the low
effects of comprehension-to-production priming actually
reflect low interactivity? (Each participant produced
sequences of utterances). To exclude this explanation,
Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated degree of interactivity.
Speakers produced either alternating utterances or
sequences of utterances. Priming was unaffected by this
manipulation. Overall, our results support a production-and-
monitoring interpretation of Experiment 1. They suggest
that prior interactivity plays a relatively reduced role in
syntactic processing, or may only exert an influence in
dialogues involving no external constraints on turn-taking.
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the support of ESRC Grant R000239363.
References
Bock, J. K. (1986). Syntactic persistence in language
production. Cognitive Psychology, 18, 355-387.
Bock, J. K., & Loebell, H. (1990). Framing sentences.
Cognition, 35, 1-39.
Branigan, H. P., Pickering, M. J., & Cleland, A. A. (2000).
Syntactic coordination in dialogue. Cognition, 75, B13-
B25.
Dell, G. S. (1986). A spreading-activation theory of retrieval
in sentence production. Psychological Review, 93, 283-
321.
Fay, N., Garrod, S., & Carletta, J. (2000). Group discussion
as interactive dialogue or as serial monologue: The
influence of group size. Psychological Science, 11, 481-
486.
Levelt, W. J. M., Roelofs, A., & Meyer, A. S. (1999). A
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Potter, M. C., & Lombardi, L. (1998). Syntactic priming in
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Postma, A. (2000). Detection of errors during speech
production: A review of speech monitoring models.
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Effects of dialogue structure on the activation of syntactic information

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Effects of dialogue structure on the activation of syntactic information

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