Ensemble Kalman filter for uncertainty in human language comprehension

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are widely used in modeling sentence processing but often exhibit deterministic behavior, contrasting with human sentence comprehension, which manages uncertainty during ambiguous or unexpected inputs. This is exemplified by reversal anomalies--sentences with unexpected role reversals that challenge syntax and semantics--highlighting the limitations of traditional ANN models, such as the Sentence Gestalt (SG) Model. To address these limitations, we propose a Bayesian framework for sentence comprehension, applying an extention of the ensemble Kalman filter (EnKF) for Bayesian inference to quantify uncertainty. By framing language comprehension as a Bayesian inverse problem, this approach enhances the SG model's ability to reflect human sentence processing with respect to the representation of uncertainty. Numerical experiments and comparisons with maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) demonstrate that Bayesian methods improve uncertainty representation, enabling the model to better approximate human cognitive processing when dealing with linguistic ambiguities. Introduction Artificial neural networks (ANNs) have become indispensable tools in modeling sentence processing within the field of natural language processing and cognitive science. These models are capable of handling complex linguistic structures, making accurate predictions, and resolving ambiguities with a notable degree of certainty, even when they are wrong Guo et al. (2017); Hein et al. (2019). However, this behavior stands in contrast to human sentence comprehension, which often involves managing uncertainty, especially when faced with ambiguous or unexpected language inputs. The research has been funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)- Project-ID 318763901 - SFB1294.