It’s the way that you, er, say it: Hesitations in speech affect language comprehension

Abstract

Everyday speech is littered with disfluency, often correlated with the production of less predictable words (e.g., Beattie & Butterworth [Beattie, G., & Butterworth, B. (1979). Contextual probability and word frequency as determinants of pauses in spontaneous speech. Language and Speech, 22,[201][202][203][204][205][206][207][208][209][210][211]). But what are the effects of disfluency on listeners? In an ERP experiment which compared fluent to disfluent utterances, we established an N400 effect for unpredictable compared to predictable words. This effect, reflecting the difference in ease of integrating words into their contexts, was reduced in cases where the target words were preceded by a hesitation marked by the word er. Moreover, a subsequent recognition memory test showed that words preceded by disfluency were more likely to be remembered. The study demonstrates that hesitation affects the way in which listeners process spoken language, and that these changes are associated with longer-term consequences for the representation of the message.

Foreign-accented speech modulates linguistic anticipatory processes

“…Hahne and Friederici (2001) A possible caveat of this study is that longer sentence and critical word durations during foreign-accented speech, compared to native speech, might have affected language comprehension. Previous literature on hesitations in speech (which, by definition, make sentences last longer) has shown that when target words are preceded by a hesitation, the N400 effect for unpredictable vs. predictable words is reduced (compared to fluent utterances; Corley et al, 2007). In our study, the duration of sentences and critical words was longer in the foreign than in the native condition, and this might have led to a reduction in the magnitude of the semantic gradient for the foreign accents.…”

Not all disfluencies are are equal: The effects of disfluent repetitions on language comprehension

“…The stimuli were 160 highly constrained fluent and disfluent utterances ending in predictable (cloze probability 0.84, range 0.52-1) or unpredictable (cloze probability 0) target words and were based on those used in Corley et al (2007).…”

“…Because disfluency tends to precede less predictable items in speech (Beattie and Butterworth, 1979) we hypothesised that the semantic integration disadvantage for unpredictable items would diminish post-disfluency, resulting in a smaller N400 difference between unpredictable and predictable target words following repetitions. Because disfluency affects attention (Collard et al, 2008) we expected target words to be more likely to be recognised if they had been initially encountered post-disfluency (Collard et al, 2008;Corley et al, 2007).…”

“…Our predictions were based on the premise that repetitions and er disfluencies have similar distributions in speech (Beattie and Bradbury, 1979;Howell and Sackin, 2001), and thus we expected that the ease with which the post-disfluent target word was integrated would be affected by its predictability (as in Corley et al, 2007). Because disfluency tends to precede less predictable items in speech (Beattie and Butterworth, 1979) we hypothesised that the semantic integration disadvantage for unpredictable items would diminish post-disfluency, resulting in a smaller N400 difference between unpredictable and predictable target words following repetitions.…”

“…Hearing a sentence including an er increases the memorability of the subsequent word (Corley et al, 2007), possibly because of an increase in attention (Collard, Corley, MacGregor, and Donaldson, 2008).…”