The article "Structural Priming: A Critical Review" by Martin J. Pickering and Victor S. Ferreira explores the phenomenon of structural priming, which is the tendency to repeat or process a current sentence more effectively due to its structural similarity to a previously experienced sentence. This review highlights the significance of structural priming in understanding the processes involved in language production and comprehension, including syntax, production, and comprehension mechanisms. The authors discuss the implications of structural priming for first language acquisition, bilingualism, and aphasia, and provide theoretical and empirical recommendations for future research. Key points include: - Structural priming has been extensively studied in the language sciences, revealing its role in both language production and comprehension. - The phenomenon is informative about how people represent and use abstract structures that are not directly grounded in perceptual or conceptual knowledge. - Structural priming can occur across different languages and involves various linguistic constructions, such as subject-verb-object order and prepositional phrases. - The review examines the historical development of structural priming research, from early experimental demonstrations to recent studies. - The authors argue that structural priming provides evidence for the mental representation of syntax, supporting an autonomous view of syntactic structure. - They discuss the implications of structural priming for the nature of language production, including the mapping from message to syntax, levels within grammatical encoding, and the nature of syntactic knowledge. - The review also explores the relationship between lexical knowledge and syntactic knowledge, and how structural priming can inform our understanding of these relationships. - Finally, the authors conclude with recommendations for future research, emphasizing the need to connect empirical findings to broader theories of psychological functioning.The article "Structural Priming: A Critical Review" by Martin J. Pickering and Victor S. Ferreira explores the phenomenon of structural priming, which is the tendency to repeat or process a current sentence more effectively due to its structural similarity to a previously experienced sentence. This review highlights the significance of structural priming in understanding the processes involved in language production and comprehension, including syntax, production, and comprehension mechanisms. The authors discuss the implications of structural priming for first language acquisition, bilingualism, and aphasia, and provide theoretical and empirical recommendations for future research. Key points include: - Structural priming has been extensively studied in the language sciences, revealing its role in both language production and comprehension. - The phenomenon is informative about how people represent and use abstract structures that are not directly grounded in perceptual or conceptual knowledge. - Structural priming can occur across different languages and involves various linguistic constructions, such as subject-verb-object order and prepositional phrases. - The review examines the historical development of structural priming research, from early experimental demonstrations to recent studies. - The authors argue that structural priming provides evidence for the mental representation of syntax, supporting an autonomous view of syntactic structure. - They discuss the implications of structural priming for the nature of language production, including the mapping from message to syntax, levels within grammatical encoding, and the nature of syntactic knowledge. - The review also explores the relationship between lexical knowledge and syntactic knowledge, and how structural priming can inform our understanding of these relationships. - Finally, the authors conclude with recommendations for future research, emphasizing the need to connect empirical findings to broader theories of psychological functioning.