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Updated: Jun 13, 2026

Examining Online Syntactic Processing of Spoken Complex Sentences in Chinese Using Dual-Modal Interference Tasks
Published on: September 5, 2019
Redundancy and reduction: speakers manage syntactic information density.
1Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Department of Computer Science, University of Rochester, Meliora Hall, Rochester, NY 14627-0268, USA. fjaeger@bcs.rochester.edu
Language production follows Uniform Information Density, distributing information evenly. This study shows speakers prefer structures with predictable probabilities, supporting information-theoretic principles in efficient language use.
Area of Science:
- Psycholinguistics
- Computational Linguistics
- Cognitive Science
Background:
- Language production aims for efficiency.
- Information theory offers a framework for understanding cognitive processes.
- Previous models inadequately explain syntactic choices in spontaneous speech.
Purpose of the Study:
- To propose and test the Uniform Information Density (UID) principle in language production.
- To investigate the role of information distribution in syntactic reduction.
- To compare UID predictions against alternative accounts like availability and ambiguity avoidance.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of a spontaneous speech corpus.
- Multilevel logit modeling to assess predictors of 'that'-mentioning.
- Quantification of information density and contextual probability.
Main Results:
- Information density significantly predicts speakers' preferences in production.
- Speakers favor syntactic structures with higher contextual probability.
- The UID principle provides a better account than several alternative models.
Conclusions:
- Language production is sensitive to information density, favoring uniform distribution.
- Speakers' choices reflect a probability-sensitive mechanism.
- Corpus-based analyses are valuable for studying language production intricacies.
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