Cascading influences on the production of speech: Evidence from articulation

Recent investigations have supported the suggestion that phonological speech errors may reflect the simultaneous activation of more than one phonemic representation. This presents a challenge for speech error evidence which is based on the assumption of well-formedness, because we may continue to pe...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2010-12, Vol.117 (3), p.243-260
Main Authors: McMillan, Corey T., Corley, Martin
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Acoustics
Articulation
Articulation (Speech)
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Communication
Data Interpretation, Statistical
Error Analysis (Language)
Evidence
Experiments
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Humans
Language
Language Processing
Phonemes
Phonemic similarity
Phonetics
Phonology
Production and perception of spoken language
Psycholinguistics
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Speech
Speech - physiology
Speech Articulation Tests
Speech production
Speech Tests
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Summary:Recent investigations have supported the suggestion that phonological speech errors may reflect the simultaneous activation of more than one phonemic representation. This presents a challenge for speech error evidence which is based on the assumption of well-formedness, because we may continue to perceive well-formed errors, even when they are not produced. To address this issue, we present two tongue-twister experiments in which the articulation of onset consonants is quantified and compared to baseline measures from cases where there is no phonemic competition. We report three measure of articulatory variability: changes in tongue-to-palate contact using electropalatography (EPG, Experiment 1), changes in midsagittal spline of the tongue using ultrasound (Experiment 2), and acoustic changes manifested as voice-onset time (VOT). These three sources provide converging evidence that articulatory variability increases when competing onsets differ by one phonological feature, but the increase is attenuated when onsets differ by two features. This finding provides clear evidence, based solely on production, that the articulation of phonemes is influenced by cascading activation from the speech plan.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.08.019