PERSONALITY AND SITUATIONAL INFLUENCES UPON VERBAL SLIPS: A LABORATORY TEST OF FREUDIAN AND PREARTICULATORY EDITING HYPOTHESES

Earlier studies of laboratory-induced verbal slips have demonstrated the existence of a “prearticulatory editing” phase of speech/language production, the supposed function of which is to evaluate the linguistic integrity of phoneme sequences destined for articulation, allowing articulation of linguistically legitimate sequences, and preventing articulation of linguistically anomalous sequences. Freud's view of verbal slips as a manifestation of speakers' private internal states, these internal states resulting from interactions of personality and situational influences, may be viewed as a prediction that prearticulatory editing involves personality/situation-based semantic criteria. The prediction was tested and supported. Implications are discussed.     

ENCODING SENSITIVITIES TO PHONOLOGICAL MARKEDNESS AND TRANSITIONAL PROBABILITY: EVIDENCE FROM SPOONERISMS

This study examined laboratory-induced spoonerisms; the type of speech error in which a phoneme unit from one word switches position with a phoneme unit from another word. Three experiments test hypotheses which assume that spoonerism errors are facilitated by the presence of certain inherent differences between the switched phonological units. Experiment I tests for facilitation based upon differences in the phonological markedness of the switched units. Experiment II and Experiment III test for facilitation based upon differences in the second-order transitional probabilities and third order transitional probabilities (respectively) of the switched units. Evidence of transitional probability effects was found, with implications for the phonological encoding processing of both naturally occurring spoonerisms and normal speech.