Structural Priming from Simple Arithmetic to Chinese Ambiguous Structures: Evidence from Eye Movement

Abstract

This article explores domain-general hierarchical representations between linguistic and mathematical cognition by investigating whether simple arithmetic equations influence language users’ interpretation of Chinese ambiguous structures (NP1+He+NP2+De+NP3; Quantifier+NP1+De+NP2; NP1+Kan/WangZhe+NP2+AP). Participants first solved an arithmetic problem with high or low attachment and then decided on the meaning of an ambiguous sentence. The way the ambiguous sentences were interpreted was primed by the structure of the preceding arithmetic problem. In other words, a high-attachment prime led to more high-attachment interpretation. So did a low one. Results showed that there were structural priming effects from simple arithmetic to three Chinese structures, which provided evidence on the cross-domain priming from simple arithmetic to language. It was also found that eye movements of language users were affected greatly by structural priming, with processing time decreased both at early and late stage.