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arXiv · 2512.23659

Less is more: Probabilistic reduction is best explained by small-scale predictability measures

Cassandra L. Jacobs·Andrés Buxó-Lugo·Anna K. Taylor·Marie Leopold-Hooke
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Abstract

The primary research questions of this paper center on defining the amount of context that is necessary and/or appropriate when investigating the relationship between language model probabilities and cognitive phenomena. We investigate whether whole utterances are necessary to observe probabilistic reduction and demonstrate that n-gram representations suffice as cognitive units of planning.

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Cassandra L. Jacobs, Andrés Buxó-Lugo, Anna K. Taylor, Marie Leopold-Hooke. 2025-12-29. Less is more: Probabilistic reduction is best explained by small-scale predictability measures. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.23659

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