Utterance format affects phonological priming in the picture-word task: implications for models of phonological encoding in speech production

Picture-word experiments investigating the production of multiword utterances with distractors that are phonologically related to words in noninitial position have yielded inconsistent results, ranging from facilitation to inhibition. A comparison of these studies is complicated by differences in detail. In parallel to the empirical inconsistencies, different theoretical accounts of phonological encoding in speech production have been provided. In the present article, the authors propose a unitary account, which can in principle account for facilitation, null effects, and inhibition. It assumes a graded activation pattern of the elements within the scope of phonological advance planning. The account is tested in an experiment varying utterance format while keeping all other aspects constant. The results are consistent with the proposed unitary account.     

Semantic and phonological activation in noun and pronoun production

Speakers can refer to objects and other entities by nouns or pronouns. The present article investigated the production of gender-marked pronouns in German. Four picture-word interference experiments are reported, addressing 2 questions. First, is the lemma of a referent noun (i.e., the representation of the referent noun's semantic and syntactic properties) accessed when producing a pronoun? Second, if so, is this access confined to the lemma, or will the referent noun's phonological form be activated, too? The results suggest that in generating pronouns, speakers accessed the lemma of the referent noun, whereas its phonological form was not substantially activated. The results are discussed in the context of other recent experimental studies of pronoun and noun production.     

When does reading dirty words impede picture processing? Taboo interference with verbal and manual responses

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Picture naming takes longer in the presence of socially inappropriate (taboo) distractor words compared with neutral distractor words. Previous studies have...     

Semantic interference from distractor pictures in single-picture naming: evidence for competitive lexical selection

Picture-naming studies have demonstrated interference from semantic-categorically related distractor words, but not from corresponding distractor pictures, and the lack of generality of the interference effect has been argued to challenge theories viewing lexical selection in speech production as a competitive process. Here, we demonstrate that semantic interference from context pictures does become visible, if sufficient attention is allocated to them. We combined picture naming with a spatial-cuing procedure. When participants’ attention was shifted to the distractor, semantically related distractor pictures interfered with the response, as compared with unrelated distractor pictures. This finding supports models conceiving lexical retrieval as competitive (Levelt, Roelofs, & Meyer, 1999) but is difficult to reconcile with the response exclusion hypothesis (Finkbeiner & Caramazza, 2006b) proposed as an alternative.     

Specific-word frequency is not all that counts in speech production: comments on Caramazza,Costa, et al. (2001) and new experimental data

A. Caramazza, A. Costa, M. Miozzo, and Y. Bi (2001) reported a series of experiments demonstrating that the ease of producing a word depends only on the frequency of that specific word but not on the frequency of a homophone twin. A. Caramazza, A. Costa, et al. concluded that homophones have separate word form presentations and that the absence of frequency-inheritance effects for homophones undermines an important argument in support of 2-stage models of lexical access, which assume that syntactic (lemma) representations mediate between conceptual and phonological representations. The authors of this article evaluate the empirical basis of this conclusion, report 2 experiments demonstrating a frequency-inheritance effect, and discuss other recent evidence. It is concluded that homophones share a common word form and that the distinction between lemmas and word forms should be upheld.     

Selection of gender-marked morphemes in speech production

N.O. Schiller and A. Caramazza (2003) and A. Costa, D. Kovacic, E. Fedorenko, and A. Caramazza (2003) have argued that the processing of freestanding gender-marked morphemes (e.g., determiners) and bound gender-marked morphemes (e.g., adjective suffixes) during syntactic encoding in speech production follows distinct principles, with only freestanding morphemes being subject to a competitive selection process. In 3 experiments, the authors tested this hypothesis in German, extending a previous study by H. Schriefers, J.D. Jescheniak, and A. Hantsch (2002). The results suggest that freestanding and bound morphemes are basically processed in the same way, although competition appears to be attenuated for bound morphemes relative to free morphemes. The authors discuss theoretical and methodological implications of this pattern.     

The cataphoric use of spoken stress in narratives

This study investigated the effects of introducing a concept into discourse either marked with spoken stress or in an unstressed form using a story continuation paradigm. Participants first listened to informal narratives and then continued them. The final phrase of the narratives introduced a new concept. If that concept had been introduced in a stressed form, participants referred to it more often and sooner. Also, there was a tendency towards using a higher proportion of pronominal references as opposed to NP references. These results closely resemble the findings of Gernsbacher and Shroyer, who, using the same experimental procedure, investigated the effect of marking a concept with the unstressed, indefinite article this as opposed to a/an. The two studies together support the notion of a common cataphoric function of the two linguistic devices; they mark concepts the speaker is likely to refer to again. Received: 10 August 1998 / Accepted: 9 December 1998     

Narrative ability in school-age stuttering boys: A preliminary investigation

In a preliminary investigation, narrative ability was compared in stuttering and nonstuttering school-age boys using tasks known to be sensitive to narrative deficits. The groups were also compared on the broader domains of receptive and expressive language development using the Clinical Evaluation of Language Fundamentals - Revised (CELF-R). The results did not support the popular view that stutterers, as a group, are more vulnerable to language disorders than their nonstuttering peers. A recent hypothesis that stuttering behavior might be a causal factor in delayed expressive language development was also not supported. The importance of examining individual differences in stuttering children is emphasized for both clinical and research purposes.     

Representation and Processing of Grammatical Gender in Language Production: A Review

The article reviews recent empirical evidence on the representation and processing of grammatical gender in language production. The evidence comes from experimental studies on error-free production, studies on the tip-of-the tongue phenomenon, and studies on naturally occurring or experimentally elicited speech errors. Relating these studies to current models of language production does not yield one completely consistent picture. However, the emerging picture puts some important constraints on models of language production.     

Gender Priming in Picture Naming: Modality and Baseline Effects

Gender priming in speech production relates to the issue of whether retrieval of a noun is facilitated by preactivation of its grammatical gender. Such gender-to-lexical entry priming has been considered the mechanism underlying the gender-identity effect in word substitution errors (i.e., a substituted word tends to have the same gender as the target word.) Gender priming was explored in two primed picture-naming experiments with German participants. Primes were presented either visually or auditorily and differed in whether they carried grammatical gender information or not. Unlike inhibition from a gender-incongruent prime, facilitation from a gender-congruent prime was weak, not reliable, and dependent on the baseline and prime modality. Implications for the interpretation of the gender-identity effect are discussed.