Do structural priming and inverse preference effect demand cognitive resources? Evidence from structural priming in production

Implicit learning theories assume that structural priming is based on an error-based prediction mechanism (e.g. Chang et al. [2006]. Becoming syntactic. Psychological Review, 113(2), 234–272.), which predicts stronger priming when the bias of the verb in the prime sentence towards a syntactic structure mismatches the actual sentence's structure (inverse preference priming). We investigated whether structural priming and inverse preference priming are modulated by cognitive resources such as demand on memory. Experiments 1 and 2 showed inverse preference priming in a priming task that exerted a relatively low cognitive load (sentence reading followed by picture description), but Experiments 3 and 4 found no such effect in a more demanding task (i.e. sentence reading, sentence recognition judgment, picture description, and picture recognition judgment). In the less demanding experiments, structural priming was always stronger and inverse preference priming was marginally stronger. These findings suggest an important role of cognitive resources in error-based learning.