Efficient language processing may involve generating expectations about upcoming input.
To investigate the extent to which prediction might facilitate reading, a large-scale survey
provided cloze scores for all 2689 words in 55 different text passages. Highly predictable
words were quite rare (5% of content words), and most words had a more-expected
competitor. An eye-tracking study showed sensitivity to cloze probability but no mis-
prediction cost. Instead, the presence of a more-expected competitor was found to be …