My PhD student Himanshu Yadav has recently submitted this amazing paper for review to a journal. This is the first in a series of papers that we are working on relating to the important topic of individual-level variability in sentence processing, a topic of central concern in our Collaborative Research Center on variability at Potsdam.
Download the preprint from here: https://psyarxiv.com/4jdu5/
Title: Individual differences in cue-weighting in sentence comprehension: An evaluation using Approximate Bayesian Computation
Authors: Himanshu Yadav, Dario Paape, Garrett Smith, Brian Dillon, and Shravan Vasishth
Abstract: Cue-based retrieval theories of sentence processing assume that syntactic dependencies are resolved through a content-addressable search process. An important recent claim is that in certain dependency types, the retrieval cues are weighted such that one cue dominates. This cue-weighting proposal aims to explain the observed average behavior, but here we show that there is systematic individual-level variation in cue weighting. Using the Lewis and Vasishth cue-based retrieval model, we estimated individual-level parameters for processing speed and cue weighting using 13 published datasets; hierarchical Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) was used to estimate the parameters. The modeling reveals a nuanced picture of cue weighting: we find support for the idea that some participants weight cues differentially, but not all participants do. Only fast readers tend to have the higher weighting for structural cues, suggesting that reading proficiency might be associated with cue weighting. A broader achievement of the work is to demonstrate how individual differences can be investigated in computational models of sentence processing without compromising the complexity of the model.
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