Is Linguistic Priming From Multiple Speakers Stronger?

This study examines whether the social network topology in which individuals are embedded influences their specific syntactic uses. Structural priming refers to the speakers’ tendency to repeat a structure they have recently heard or produced. In one of two conditions (single-speaker/SSP and multi-speaker priming/MSP), adult participants played a picture description and verification game with 6 other players (confederates). During the game, participants were primed with double-object dative (vs prepositional) and passive transitive (vs active) structures. In a baseline session, participants’ dative and transitive production without priming was assessed. Crucially, in the SSP condition subjects were primed by a single confederate, while in the MSP condition, participants were primed by five confederates. The cumulative number of priming sentences was equal across conditions. The degree to which participants were primed for the target structures compared to baseline was measured. It was hypothesized that if social network topology affects linguistic behavior, the MSP condition should promote a greater difference from baseline in primed grammatical structures compared to the SSP condition. Results indicated a strong priming effect in both conditions. Nevertheless, the level of increase in the target structure's use did not differ significantly between the SSP and MSP conditions.