At-lexical, articulatory interference in silent reading: The “upstream” tongue-twister effect

Abstract

In two experiments, we investigated the interpretation and boundary conditions of the tonguetwister (TT) effect in silent reading. Previously, McCutchen, Bell, France, and Perfetti (1991) observed a TT effect when students made semantic acceptability judgments on sentences, but not when they made lexical decisions on lists of words. Using similar methodology in Experiment 1, along with two changes (using "better" TTs and longer word lists), we observed a TT effect in a lexical decision task. In Experiment 2, a memory span task revealed that students recalled fewer words from TT lists than from control lists. These results suggest that the basic mechanism of the TT effect may be articulatory, rather than working-memory, interference that occurs during lexical access and resurfaces postlexically, inhibiting efforts to maintain the temporal order of several words,The debate over the functions of phonology in adults' silent reading has raged on over the past several years, It has become "the single dominant theoretical issue in the psychology ofreading" (Crowder & Wagner, 1992, p. 157), Recently, Berent andPerfetti (1995) stated that the most important function of phonology is assisting sentence comprehension. Phonology facilitates this process by helping retain the temporal order of words in working memory so that they can be syntactically and semantically analyzed (Johnston, Thompson, Fletcher-Flinn, & Holligan, 1995). Another possible function of phonology is in the identification of isolated words, by activating phonological representations to access lexical meanings. Thus, phonology may serve two functions in reading: (1) identification of the printed word and (2) temporary storage of several words while sentence comprehension takes place. Although researchers are in agreement regarding the latter function, the former function remains controversial (Zhang & Perfetti, 1993). The Tongue-Twister EffectOne window that may shed some light on this issue is the tongue-twister (TT) paradigm. The rationale here is that if silent reading is dependent on phonology, readers will take longer to read sentences that contain words that share similar initial phonemes (e.g., "The Swiss wristwatch strap shop shuts soon.") than they would to read sentences that contain a natural mix of initial phonemes (e.g., "The brown bearskin rug man left town.") because the former are more difficult to articulate (Haber & Haber, 1982). This TT effect has been demonstrated in studies in which subjects simply read sentences silently (Haber & Haber, 1982), in which subjects read and were required to comprehend the sentences (Ayres, 1984), and in which Correspondence should be addressed to D. H. Robinson. School of Education. University of South Dakota, Vermillion, SD 57069 (e-mail: drobinso@sundance.usd.edu).various groups made semantic acceptability judgments on sentences (American students who were deaf, Hanson, Goodell, & Perfetti, 1991; Chinese students, Zhang & Perfetti, 1993; and American students with normal hearing, McCutchen & Perfetti,...

Brain imaging of tongue-twister sentence comprehension: Twisting the tongue and the brain

“…The tongue-twister sentences contained a large proportion of words that shared the initial letter and phoneme, as in previous behavioral work on comprehension of tongue-twister sentences (Ayres, 1984;McCutchen et al, 1991;McCutchen & Perfetti, 1982;McCutchen, Dibble, & Blount, 1994;Zhang & Perfetti, 1993). However, the words also alternated in terms of initial phoneme clusters, as in the Robinson and Katayama (1997) study of tongue-twister effects in lexical decisions and memory span.…”

“…This phonological similarity effect has traditionally been investigated by manipulating the vowels rather than the initial phonemes of words in the input list (e.g., pat, man, cat, and hand). However, the same deficit in recall has also recently been found for lists containing words with the same initial consonant relative to lists varying in initial consonants (Robinson & Katayama, 1997), increasing the resemblance to the tongue-twister effect. Just as there are two accounts of the tongue-twister effect, there are two approximately corresponding accounts of the phonological similarity deficit in serial recall found by Robinson and Katayama (1997).…”

“…However, the same deficit in recall has also recently been found for lists containing words with the same initial consonant relative to lists varying in initial consonants (Robinson & Katayama, 1997), increasing the resemblance to the tongue-twister effect. Just as there are two accounts of the tongue-twister effect, there are two approximately corresponding accounts of the phonological similarity deficit in serial recall found by Robinson and Katayama (1997). One possible explanation of the phonological similarity deficit in serial recall is that it is due to phonological confusions within a temporary memory system.…”

“…Furthermore, the phoneme-specific interference between silently maintained numbers and tongue-twister sentences in the acceptability judgment task discussed above was not found in the lexical-decision task. Robinson and Katayama (1997), however, demonstrated a tongue-twister effect on reaction times in a lexical decision task using slightly longer lists of words, and perhaps more importantly, tongue-twister lists that alternated initial phonemes or phoneme clusters (e.g., flagpole, fractional, flopping, and fragrant), rather than simply those composed of words with the same initial consonant. This alternation of initial phoneme clusters may have reduced similarity effects in orthographic or phonological priming, and it is known to be particularly effective in slowing overt speech production (Rosenbaum, Weber, Hazelett, & Hindorff, 1986), and inducing overt speech errors involving perseverations or exchanges.…”

“…This alternation of initial phoneme clusters may have reduced similarity effects in orthographic or phonological priming, and it is known to be particularly effective in slowing overt speech production (Rosenbaum, Weber, Hazelett, & Hindorff, 1986), and inducing overt speech errors involving perseverations or exchanges. Because the frequency and types of speech errors are similar for overt and covert production tasks (e.g., Postma & Noordanus, 1996), the Robinson and Katayama (1997) stimuli may have been more potent tongue-twisters, allowing the effect to be seen in a lexical decision task.…”