Mechanisms of interaction in speech production

Abstract

Many theories predict the presence of interactive effects involving information represented by distinct cognitive processes in speech production. There is considerably less agreement regarding the precise cognitive mechanisms that underlie these interactive effects. For example, are they driven by purely production-internal mechanisms (e.g., Dell, 1986) or do they reflect the influence of perceptual monitoring mechanisms on production processes (e.g., Roelofs, 2004)? Acoustic analyses reveal the phonetic realization of words is influenced by their word-specific properties-supporting the presence of interaction between lexical-level and phonetic information in speech production. A second experiment examines what mechanisms are responsible for this interactive effect. The results suggest the effect occurs on-line and is not purely driven by listener modeling. These findings are consistent with the presence of an interactive mechanism that is online and internal to the production system.A great deal of research has documented the presence of interactive effects-the interaction of distinct types of information represented by different cognitive processes -within both speech production and perception. The Ganong effect (Ganong, 1980) is a prototypical example; it illustrates the interaction of lexical and phonetic category information in speech perception. When presented with syllables whose initial consonants vary along a voice-onset time (VOT) continuum, listeners' identification of the initial phoneme is sensitive to whether the resulting syllable is a word or nonword. This is an interactive effect because the two types of information are assumed to be encoded by distinct processing stages in speech perception. The lexicality of a sound sequence is represented within lexical level processes, while the structure of phonetic categories is represented by pre-lexical processes (see McClelland, Mirman, and Holt, 2006, for a recent review of architectures based around this perspective; but see Gaskell and Marslen-Wilson, 1997, for an alternative perspective).Within the domain of speech production, many studies have focused on interactive effects involving semantic and phonological information. Most speech production theories assume that at least two distinct stages (representing different types of information) are involved in mapping semantic representations onto abstract, long-term memory representations of word form (e.g., mapping 'flying nocturnal mammal' to "bat"). The first processing stage involves selection of a word to express an intended concept, and the second involves retrieval of sound information corresponding to the selected word from long-term memory (Garrett, 1980). We refer to the former as lexical selection and the latter as lexical phonological processing. Critically, semantic information is represented within lexical selection processes while phonological information is represented within lexical phonetic processes. Chronometric studies, spontaneous speech error analyses, and studies of indiv...

Whence the fuzziness? Morphological effects in interacting sound changes in Southern British English

“…The line of research on phonetics-lexicon interactions is important to acknowledge, as it potentially offers a way of reconciling apparently non-modular effects with a modular analysis. We know that lexical factors, such as neighbourhood size, frequency, or lexical predictability, influence continuous phonetic dimensions, such as for instance VOT, segmental duration, or degree of coarticulation (Munson & Solomon, 2004;Scarborough, 2004;Baese-Berk & Goldrick, 2009;Arnon & Cohen Priva, 2013;Cohen Priva, 2015). These findings have not led to a unanimous rejection of modular processing, as some psycholinguistic models have the capacity to capture such gradient phonetic effects using simultaneous activation of multiple categories.…”

“…For instance, simultaneous activation of two competing phonological representations may give rise to intermediate phonetic realization, as seen for instance in speech errors (Goldrick & Blumstein, 2006;McMillan & Corley, 2010). Baese-Berk & Goldrick (2009) and Peramunage et al (2011) extend this idea to situations of lexical competition which might simultaneously activate different phonological categories, resulting in phonetic gradience.…”

Activation cascading in sign production.

“…The iconicity effects we found in the picture-picture interference task reveal instead that non-selected signs activate information accessible not only in language but also in action. In this respect, sign production appears to resemble speech production, for showing the activation of aspects related to the planning and implementation of articulatory gestures (Baese-Berk, & Goldrick, 2009;Goldrick & Blumstein, 2006;Buchwald & Miozzo, 2011). It should be clarified that our result do not imply that signs would not activate a language-specific representation, revealing instead that activation would spread beyond this representation reaching more 'peripheral' representations articulatory in nature.…”

Frequency biases in phonological variation

“…becomes less predictable) if it inhabits a dense lexical neighborhood (Luce and Pisoni 1986;Luce 1998, 1999;etc). Many studies have documented that factors such as these influence speech production, with the general result being that less predictable words (inhibited or less strongly primed) tend to be produced more slowly, and with more effort or clarity (Baese-Berk and Goldrick 2009;Bell et al 2009;Gahl 2008;Jurafsky et al 2001;Scarborough 2004Scarborough , 2010etc.). Similar results have also been reported in the literature on "Uniform Information Density" (Frank and Jaeger 2008;Jaeger 2010;etc.…”