Abstract
<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p> Prediction refers to the use of information currently available to create expectations about what will happen next. This chapter begins by illustrating the effects of prediction in language comprehension and processing, as demonstrated in seminal psycholinguistic experiments with native (L1) and non‐native (L2) speakers. It is now well established that both L1 and L2 speakers engage in prediction during language comprehension. Yet a generalization that has emerged from recent research is that L2 users sometimes, but not always, show reduced and/or delayed effects of prediction. To what extent this is due to reduced linguistic or cognitive <jats:italic>ability</jats:italic> to engage in predictive processing in an L2, or to the reduced <jats:italic>utility</jats:italic> of prediction to achieve successful processing outcomes in an L2, is a topic of ongoing investigation in the field. Evidence for the potentially modulating role of user‐internal and ‐external factors, including proficiency, working memory capacity, and task demands, is reviewed. The chapter concludes with a brief discussion of prediction error as a mechanism for learning, as proposed by theoretical and computational models of error‐based learning in cognitive science, and the implications of such proposals for SLA, which have only just begun to be explored, raising intriguing questions and possibilities for future research in applied linguistics. </jats:p>