查看文章

An increasingly influential attempt to provide a unified theory of the mind is grounded in the notion of prediction. On this account, our minds are prediction engines, continuously matching incoming input to top-down expectations. Higher-level predictions or expectations are generated by internal cognitive models at multiple hierarchical levels that jointly serve to minimize prediction error at lower levels in the information processing hierarchy. In language research, prediction has become an increasingly influential approach to understanding how language comprehension unfolds in real time. But how can predictive processing inform our understanding of how we come to learn language in the first place? In this review, I consider how prediction-based theories of the mind can aid in explaining how language development unfolds. First, I review research in perception and language on predictive processes and assess …