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 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.

[1]  Bernard J. Baars,et al.  A Dozen Competing-Plans Techniques for Inducing Predictable Slips in Speech and Action , 1992 .

[2]  Gordon D. A. Brown,et al.  Serial Control of Phonology in Speech Production: A Hierarchical Model , 2000, Cognitive Psychology.

[3]  Martin Corley,et al.  Articulatory evidence for feedback and competition in speech production , 2009 .

[4]  Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel,et al.  Sublexical Units and Suprasegmental Structure in Speech Production Planning , 1983 .

[5]  Rudolf Meringer,et al.  Versprechen und Verlesen : eine psychologisch-linguistische Studie , 1978 .

[6]  Brenda C Rapp,et al.  Feedback by Any Other Name Is Still Interactivity: A Reply to Roelofs (2004). , 2004 .

[7]  D. G. MacKay.  Spoonerisms: the structure of errors in the serial order of speech. , 1970, Neuropsychologia.

[8]  A D Baddeley,et al.  Short-term Memory for Word Sequences as a Function of Acoustic, Semantic and Formal Similarity , 1966, The Quarterly journal of experimental psychology.

[9]  L. Lisker,et al.  A Cross-Language Study of Voicing in Initial Stops: Acoustical Measurements , 1964 .

[10]  Martin Corley,et al.  Phonological Encoding and Monitoring in Normal and Pathological Speech , 2005 .

[11]  Nomen.  Leyden studies in linguistics and phonetics , 1969 .

[12]  José E. García-Albea,et al.  On the autonomy of phonological encoding: Evidence from slips of the tongue in Spanish , 1991 .

[13]  Richard Wright,et al.  The phonetics of phonological speech errors: An acoustic analysis of slips of the tongue , 2002, J. Phonetics.

[14]  Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel,et al.  The representation of phonological information during speech production planning:evidence from vowel errors in spontaneous speech , 1986, Phonology.

[15]  Noam Chomsky,et al.  The Sound Pattern of English , 1968 .

[16]  Sirpa Mäki,et al.  The computer program , 1980 .

[17]  W. Levelt,et al.  Speaking: From Intention to Articulation , 1990 .

[18]  M. Garrett.  Levels of processing in sentence production , 1980 .

[19]  R. Harald Baayen,et al.  Analyzing linguistic data: a practical introduction to statistics using R, 1st Edition , 2008 .

[20]  R A Mowrey,et al.  Phonological primitives: electromyographic speech error evidence. , 1990, The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America.

[21]  M. Stone.  A guide to analysing tongue motion from ultrasound images , 2005, Clinical linguistics & phonetics.

[22]  John Laver,et al.  Slips of the tongue as neuromuscular evidence for a model of speech production , 1980 .

[23]  Sieb G. Nooteboom,et al.  Listening to oneself: Monitoring speech production : Abstract , 2005 .

[24]  Carolyn E. Wilshire,et al.  The “Tongue Twister” Paradigm as a Technique for Studying Phonological Encoding , 1999 .

[25]  Paul Boersma,et al.  Praat: doing phonetics by computer , 2003 .

[26]  Edward R. Kemery,et al.  Failure to detect moderating effects: Is multicollinearity the problem? , 1987 .

[27]  Willem J. M. Levelt,et al.  A theory of lexical access in speech production , 1999, Behavioral and Brain Sciences.

[28]  A. Healy,et al.  The roles of phoneme frequency, similarity, and availability in the experimental elicitation of speech errors , 1985 .

[29]  Brian Butterworth,et al.  Speech and talk , 1980 .

[30]  M. Corley,et al.  Error Biases in Inner Speech 1 Running head: ERROR BIASES IN INNER SPEECH Error Biases in Inner and Overt Speech: Evidence from Tonguetwisters , 2010 .

[31]  G. Dell,et al.  Errors in Inner Speech , 1992 .

[32]  J..  Meaning , Sound , and Syntax : Lexical Priming in Sentence Production , 2001 .

[33]  A. Postma,et al.  Production and Detection of Speech Errors in Silent, Mouthed, Noise-Masked, and Normal Auditory Feedback Speech , 1996 .

[34]  A. Ellis.  Progress in the psychology of language , 1985 .

[35]  Stefanie Shattuck-Hufnagel,et al.  The Limited Use of Distinctive Features and Markedness in Speech Production: Evidence from Speech Error Data. , 1979 .

[36]  P. Boersma.  Praat : doing phonetics by computer (version 5.1.05) , 2009 .

[37]  B. Baars.  Experimental slips and human error : exploring the architecture of volition , 1992 .

[38]  Gary S. Dell,et al.  Stages in sentence production: An analysis of speech error data , 1981 .

[39]  Stefan A. Frisch,et al.  Similarity and Frequency in Phonology , 1996 .

[40]  M. Meyerhoff,et al.  Working papers in linguistics , 1994 .

[41]  Louis Goldstein,et al.  Articulatory gestures as phonological units , 1989, Phonology.

[42]  Peter F. MacNeilage,et al.  The Production of Speech , 2011, Springer New York.

[43]  G. Stelmach,et al.  Tutorials in Motor Behavior , 1980 .

[44]  Frank Wijnen,et al.  Phonological Encoding and Monitoring in Normal and Pathological Speech , 2005 .

[45]  Kathryn Bock,et al.  Meaning, sound, and syntax: Lexical priming in sentence production. , 1986 .

[46]  S. Blumstein,et al.  Cascading activation from phonological planning to articulatory processes: Evidence from tongue twisters , 2006 .

[47]  Matthew A Goldrick,et al.  Limited interaction in speech production: Chronometric, speech error, and neuropsychological evidence , 2006 .

[48]  S. Frisch,et al.  Production and perception of place of articulation errors , 2006 .

[49]  Paul Boersma,et al.  Praat, a system for doing phonetics by computer , 2002 .

[50]  G S Dell,et al.  A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in sentence production. , 1986, Psychological review.

[51]  Joseph Paul Stemberger,et al.  The nature of segments in the lexicon: Evidence from speech errors☆ , 1982 .

[52]  Marianne Pouplier,et al.  The role of a coda consonant as error trigger in repetition tasks , 2008, J. Phonetics.

[53]  W. Cooper,et al.  Sentence Processing: Psycholinguistic Studies Presented to Merrill Garrett. , 1980 .

[54]  Steve Tauroza,et al.  Speech Rates in British English , 1990 .

[55]  Jürgen Kurths,et al.  Synchronization - A Universal Concept in Nonlinear Sciences , 2001, Cambridge Nonlinear Science Series.

[56]  H. W. Dechert,et al.  Temporal variables in speech : studies in honour of Frieda Goldman-Eisler , 1980 .

[57]  Joseph John Kupin,et al.  Tongue twisters as a source of information about speech production , 1982 .

[58]  Maria-Josep Solé,et al.  Experimental approaches to phonology , 2007 .

[59]  C. McMillan,et al.  Articulatory Evidence for Interactivity in Speech Production , 2009 .

[60]  Marianne Pouplier,et al.  Tongue Kinematics during Utterances Elicited with the SLIP Technique , 2007, Language and speech.

[61]  Gary S. Dell,et al.  Inner speech slips exhibit lexical bias, but not the phonemic similarity effect , 2008, Cognition.

[62]  Dani Byrd,et al.  Dynamic action units slip in speech production errors , 2007, Cognition.

[63]  Sieb G. Nooteboom,et al.  The tongue slips into patterns , 1969 .

[64]  Hugo Quené,et al.  The SLIP technique as a window on the mental preparation of speech : Some methodological considerations , 2006 .

[65]  J. Stemberger.  Apparent anti-frequency effects in language production: The Addition Bias and phonological underspecification☆ , 1991 .

[66]  A M Liberman,et al.  Perception of the speech code. , 1967, Psychological review.

[67]  Sieb G. Nooteboom,et al.  Lexical bias revisited: Detecting, rejecting and repairing speech errors in inner speech , 2005, Speech Commun..