Lexical Prediction in Human Sentence Processing

Basic course information

This is a seminar on what and how people predict about upcoming words in sentences.
Every week, each student reads a paper (or a couple of short ones) and one of the students presents the paper and leads in-class discussions.
When: 12:15 - 13:45, Wednesday
**No class on 25th, October or on 1st, November!**
Where: C7 3 / Seminar room 1.12
** The classroom has changed from the original one**
Prerequisites: None. First couple of classes introduce background knowledge.
You MUST join the seminar Teams channel to be in this seminar. If you haven't join it here.
All comunications should be via Teams, but you can also contact me at nakamura@lst.uni-saarland.de if there is any issue about Teams.

Overview

In everyday life, we hear and read hundreds and thousands of utterances, and understand what they mean (including this website!). Since it is such a usual part of our life, we rarely realize what a complicated task it is, and how quickly and effortless we complete it. This might be all the more surprising given that computers with huge computational resources and with state-of-the-art models have yet to reach what humans can normally do. Why we humans are such experts of language processing, even we are equipped with only limited computational abilities?

Psycholinguists have argued that predictive processing is one key to solve this puzzle. That is, people use what they have already heard/read to facilitate processing of expected continuations. For example, when you hear "I would like to have some coffee with ...", you guess cream or sugar among other candidates are likely to follow, and you start processing them even before you hear them.

This course will explore the predictive processing in human sentence processing. We will focus on the process of identification of words, and explore how prediction is involved in it.
We will be asking following questions:

How people use contexts to make predictions about upcoming words?
Which information can be used for prediction and which cannot be?
How can we know what people are predicting and how much they are predicted?

Course policies

Student responsibility

Each student is expected to attend, prepare, for and participate in every class. Please communicate in advance with me if you have to miss a class. If you cannot do so due to an emergency, please communicate it as soon as you can.
Turn in assignments on time and fully completed.
Ask for help!

Communication with Instructor

You can walk into my office at C7 1, Room 1.13 anytime during the office hours below. These are tentative slots and I will make an announcement on Teams if there is any change.
- Tuesday at 15-16
- Friday at 11-12
All online comunications from students or from instructors should be via Teams. You can also contact me at nakamura@lst.uni-saarland.de if there is any issue using Teams.

Names/Pronouns and Self-Identifications

I recognize the importance of a diverse student body, and we are committed to fostering inclusive and equitable classroom environments. I invite you, if you wish, to tell us how you want to be referred to in this class, both in terms of your name and your pronouns (he/him, she/her, they/them, etc.). Keep in mind that the pronouns someone uses are not necessarily indicative of their gender identity. Additionally, it is your choice whether to disclose how you identify in terms of your gender, race, class, sexuality, religion, and dis/ability, among all aspects of your identity (e.g., should it come up in classroom conversation about our experiences and perspectives) and should be self-identified, not presumed or imposed. I will do my best to address and refer to all students accordingly, and I ask you to do the same for all of your fellows.