Constraints on Exchange Edits During Noisy‐Channel Inference
Markus Bader, Michael Meng
TL;DR
This study explores how people infer intended meanings in corrupted sentences by testing if they consider word exchanges in different German sentence structures.
Contribution
The paper introduces new insights into how syntactic structure and task type influence the use of word exchanges in sentence repair.
Findings
Implausible SO and passive sentences rarely led to nonliteral interpretations, unlike OS sentences.
Word exchanges with function words were considered more often than with nouns.
Explicit corrections showed frequent use of noun exchanges, suggesting task-dependent priors.
Abstract
According to the noisy channel framework of sentence processing, communication can succeed even when the input is corrupted because comprehenders rationally infer the speaker's intended meaning based on the prior probability of the literal interpretation and the probability that the input has been corrupted by noise. To test whether and under what conditions comprehenders consider word exchanges as a possible source of corruption, we ran five experiments on processing three types of simple German sentences: subject‐before‐object sentences (SO), object‐before‐subject sentences (OS), and passive sentences. Critical sentences had implausible meanings, but could be “repaired” by exchanging function words or by exchanging nouns. Experiments 1 through 4 presented sentences along with yes‐no questions to probe interpretation. Implausible SO and passive sentences consistently elicited few…
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Taxonomy
TopicsNeurobiology of Language and Bilingualism · Language Development and Disorders · Action Observation and Synchronization