Why the A/AN prediction effect may be hard to replicate: A rebuttal to DeLong, Urbach & Kutas (2017)
Aine Ito, Andrea E. Martin, Mante S. Nieuwland · 2017
In our recent publication “How robust are prediction effects in language comprehension? Failure to replicate article-elicited N400 effects” (Ito, Martin, & Nieuwland, 2016a), we report two experiments which failed to replicate existing ERP evidence for prediction as reported in C. D. Martin et al. (2013), whose study resembled DeLong, Urbach, and Kutas (2005; from hereon DUK05). DeLong, Urbach, and Kutas (2017; from hereon, DUK17) recently published a commentary which depicts our publication as a case of poor scholarship that makes “no substantive contribution to the literature on what factors may matter for prediction and when.” DUK17 warn that the readers of our work “will be led into serious error.” In this rebuttal, we first present evidence that is inconsistent with the arguments of DUK17 regarding our own experiments, and then we briefly discuss other indications why it might be hard to observe and thus replicate the a/an prediction effect.