The Meeting Point: Where Language Production and Working Memory Share Resources

The interaction between working memory and language processing is widely discussed in cognitive research. However, those studies often explore the relationship between language comprehension and working memory (WM). The role of WM is rarely considered in language production, despite some evidence su...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of psycholinguistic research 2019-02, Vol.48 (1), p.61-79
Main Authors: Ishkhanyan, Byurakn, Boye, Kasper, Mogensen, Jesper
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adult
Behavioral Science and Psychology
Brain Hemisphere Functions
Cognitive Psychology
Comprehension
Correlation
Denmark
Encoding (Cognitive process)
Female
Grammar
Humans
Language
Language planning
Language Processing
Language Tests
Language Usage
Linguistic Theory
Linguistics
Male
Memory
Memory, Short-Term - physiology
Middle Aged
Phonology
Prediction
Psycholinguistics
Psychology
Reaction Time
Role
Short Term Memory
Speech
Task Analysis
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Summary:The interaction between working memory and language processing is widely discussed in cognitive research. However, those studies often explore the relationship between language comprehension and working memory (WM). The role of WM is rarely considered in language production, despite some evidence suggesting a relationship between the two cognitive systems. This study attempts to fill that gap by using a complex span task during language production. We make our predictions based on the reorganization of elementary functions neurocognitive model, a usage based theory about grammatical status, and language production models. In accordance with these theories, we expect an overlap between language production and WM at one or more levels of language planning. Our results show that WM is involved at the phonological encoding level of language production and that adding WM load facilitates language production, which leads us to suggest that an extra task-specific storage is being created while the task is performed.
ISSN:0090-6905
1573-6555
DOI:10.1007/s10936-018-9589-0