Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-2plfb Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-28T06:47:23.888Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Toward a unified account of comprehension and production in language development

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 June 2013

Stewart M. McCauley
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. [email protected]://[email protected]
Morten H. Christiansen
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853. [email protected]://[email protected]

Abstract

Although Pickering & Garrod (P&G) argue convincingly for a unified system for language comprehension and production, they fail to explain how such a system might develop. Using a recent computational model of language acquisition as an example, we sketch a developmental perspective on the integration of comprehension and production. We conclude that only through development can we fully understand the intertwined nature of comprehension and production in adult processing.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2013 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Arnon, I. & Snider, N. (2010) More than words: Frequency effects for multi-word phrases. Journal of Memory and Language 62:6782.Google Scholar
Bannard, C. & Matthews, D. (2008) Stored word sequences in language learning: The effect of familiarity on children's repetition of four-word combinations. Psychological Science 19:241–48.Google Scholar
Borensztajn, G., Zuidema, J. & Bod, R. (2009) Children's grammars grow more abstract with age. Topics in Cognitive Science 1:175–88.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chang, F., Dell, G. S. & Bock, K. (2006) Becoming syntactic. Psychological Review 113(2):234272.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ferreira, F., Ferraro, V. & Bailey, K. G. D. (2002) Good enough representations in language comprehension. Current Directions in Psychological Science 11:1115.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fraser, C., Bellugi, U. & Brown, R. (1963) Control of grammar in imitation, comprehension, and production. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 2:121–35.Google Scholar
Freudenthal, D., Pine, J. M., Aguado-Orea, J. & Gobet, F. (2007) Modelling the developmental pattern of finiteness marking in English, Dutch, German, and Spanish using MOSAIC. Cognitive Science 31:311–41.Google Scholar
Gertner, Y. & Fisher, C. (2012) Predicted errors in children's early sentence comprehension. Cognition 124:8594.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Grimm, A., Muller, A., Hamann, C. & Ruigendijk, E. (2011) Production-comprehension asymmetries in child language. De Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Janssen, N. & Barber, H. A. (2012) Phrase frequency effects in language production. PLoS ONE7:e33202.Google ScholarPubMed
Mani, N. & Huettig, F. (2012) Prediction during language processing is a piece of cake – but only for skilled producers. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance 38: 843–47.Google Scholar
McCauley, S. M. & Christiansen, M. H. (2011) Learning simple statistics for language comprehension and production: The CAPPUCCINO model. In: Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. Carlson, L., Hölscher, C. & Shipley, T., pp. 1619–24. Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar
McCauley, S. M. & Christiansen, M. H. (submitted) Language learning as language use: A computational model of children's comprehension and production of language. Manuscript in preparation, Cornell University.Google Scholar
Pelucchi, B., Hay, J. F. & Saffran, J. R. (2009) Learning in reverse: Eight-month-old infants track backward transitional probabilities. Cognition 113:244–47.Google Scholar
Reali, F. & Christiansen, M. H. (2007) Processing of relative clauses is made easier by frequency of occurrence. Journal of Memory and Language, 57:123.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanford, A. J. & Sturt, P. (2002) Depth of processing in language comprehension: Not noticing the evidence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 6:382–86.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed