Three online mouse cursor-tracking experiments investigated predictive sentence processing at speed. Participants viewed visual arrays with objects like a bike and kite while hearing predictive sentences like, “What the man will ride, which is shown on this page, is the bike,” or non-predictive sentences like, “What the man will spot, which is shown on this page, is the bike.” Based on the selectional restrictions of “ride” (i.e., vs. “spot”), participants made mouse cursor movements to the bike before hearing the noun (...) “bike.” Compellingly, this effect was observed at speech rates of ∼3 (Experiment 1), ∼6 (Experiment 2), and ∼9 (Experiment 3) syllables/s. While prior research suggests striking limits on prediction, these results highlight temporal dynamics that may impact comprehenders’ ability to preactivate information when hearing impressively rapid speech. Implications for theories of sentence processing are discussed. (shrink)

We explored the influence of negation on cognitive dynamics, measured using mouse‐movement trajectories, to test the classic notion that negation acts as an operator on linguistic processing. In three experiments, participants verified the truth or falsity of simple statements, and we tracked the computer‐mouse trajectories of their responses. Sentences expressing these facts sometimes contained a negation. Such negated statements could be true (e.g., “elephants are not small”) or false (e.g., “elephants are not large”). In the first experiment, as predicted by (...) the classic notion of negation, we found that negation caused more discreteness in the mouse trajectory of a response. The second experiment induced a simple context for these statements, yet negation still increased discreteness in trajectories. A third experiment enhanced the pragmatic context of sentences, and the discreteness was substantially diminished, with one primary measure no longer significantly showing increased discreteness at all. Traditional linguistic theories predict rapid shifts in cognitive dynamics occur due to the nature of negation: It is an operator that reverses the truth or falsity of an interpretation. We argue that these results support both propositional and contextual accounts of negation present in the literature, suggesting that contextual factors are crucial for determining the kind of cognitive dynamics displayed. We conclude by drawing broader lessons about theories of cognition from the case of negation. (shrink)