# Does priming prosodic phrasing modulate reading times?

Dorotea Bevivino, Giuseppina Turco, Barbara Hemforth

► To cite this version:

Dorotea Bevivino, Giuseppina Turco, Barbara Hemforth. Does priming prosodic phrasing modulate reading times?. Architectures and Mechanisms for Language Processing (AMLaP 29), Aug 2023, Donostia-San Sebastián, Spain. . hal-04637598

HAL Id: hal-04637598

https://cnrs.hal.science/hal-04637598v1

Submitted on 6 Jul 2024

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Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
# Does Priming Prosodic Phrasing Modulate Reading Times?

Dorotea Bevivino, Giuseppina Turco, Barbara Hemforth

Université Paris Cité, LLF, CNRS

dorotea.bevivino@u-paris.fr

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Université
Paris Cité

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## What did we investigate?

Is prosody simply the result of low-level processes, or does it affect the processing of new sentences? [1, 2]

* Priming effects of prosodic phrasing in the resolution of ambiguity in perception studies [3, 4, 5]

* Processing cost of conflicting prosodic phrasing in offline physiological studies [6]

Does prosodic phrasing modulate online processing beyond syntactic structure?

Can we have priming effects of prosodic phrasing in the online processing of unambiguous sentences with a well-defined prosodic structure in French?

## Why French?

* French intonation: highly regular prosodic structure based on the repetition of a minimal prosodic unit, the accentual phrase, AP [7, 8]

<figure><img src="image_5.png" /><figcaption>FO track of an utterance with a NP made of 3 APs. Example taken from [5]</figcaption></figure>

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JAP

JAP

JNP
JAP]ip

JAP

Jip]IP

## How to test it?

### Stimuli

* Primes: monosyllabic numbers (cooperating/conflicting prosodic phrasing)

* Targets: 18 unambiguous NP+VP sentences with 2 APs (default/deviant)

* Fillers: 2 other constructions with different prosodic phrasings to avoid adaptation effects to unreliable prosody [9, 10]

* Attention checks: to ensure engagement with the primes

<table><thead><tr><th rowspan="2">Target structure</th><th colspan="2">Audio prime</th><th rowspan="2">Target sentence</th></tr><tr><th>Cooperating</th><th>Conflicting</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td rowspan="2">default</td><td>Cooperating</td><td>5 9 6 - 1 7 2</td><td>(La voisine)<sub>AP</sub> (est enceinte)<sub>AP</sub> 'The neighbor is pregnant'</td></tr><tr><td>Conflicting</td><td>5 9 6 1 7 - 2</td><td></td></tr><tr><td rowspan="2">deviant</td><td>Cooperating</td><td>5 9 6 1 7 - 2 8 3</td><td>(La voisine sympa)<sub>AP</sub> (est enceinte)<sub>AP</sub> 'The nice neighbor is pregnant'</td></tr><tr><td>Conflicting</td><td>5 9 6 - 1 7 2 8 3</td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

### Experiment 1

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* Task: Audio-primed acceptability judgment

* Measure: Reading times at silent reading before rating

### Experiment 2

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* Task: Audio-primed speeded acceptability judgment

* Measure: Reaction times at judgement

## What did we expect?

* Longer RT conflicting > cooperating prosodic phrasing

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➤ Greater cognitive load in language processing, triggered by interference effects of primed conflicting prosodic phrasing

➤ Suggesting that prosodic phrasing may affect the processing of new sentences and play a role in language processing beyond expected syntactic structure

## What did we find?

### Experiment 1

(N = 32)

<figure><img src="image_10.png" /></figure>

### Experiment 2

(N = 23)

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Our data do not seem to confirm the hypothesis of (inhibitory) priming effects of prosodic phrasing in the online processing of unambiguous sentences

* Not really capturing reading times

* Target sentences too short to show an effect?

* Prime not strong enough (vs. very regular prosodic phrasing of the targets)?

* Priming effect only on the resolution of ambiguous sentences?

## Selected references

[1] Carlson (2009). Language and Linguistics Compass, 3(5), 1188–1200.
[2] Shattuck-Hufnagel & Turk (1996). Journal of Psycholinguistic Research, 25(2), 193–247.
[3] Jun & Bishop (2015). Language and Speech, 58(4), 459–473.
[4] Mills (2020). Proc. Speech Prosody 2020, 295–298.
[5] Michelas & D’Imperio et al. (2015). Laboratory Phonology, 6(1), 119–146.

[6] Engelhardt et al. (2010). The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 63(4), 639–645.
[7] Jun & Fougeron (2002). Probus, 14(1), 147–172.
[8] Vaissière & Michaud (2006). Prosody and Syntax, 47–64.
[9] Nakamura et al. (2022). Language, Cognition and Neuroscience, 37(5), 624–647.
[10] Roettger & Rimland (2020). Cognition, 204, 104372.