On the laws of attraction at cocktail parties: Babble noise influences the production of number agreement

Hanke, Mirko; Hamann, Cornelia; Ruigendijk, Esther

doi:10.1080/01690965.2012.696664

Cited by 2 publications

(2 citation statements)

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“…In earlier work, the attraction asymmetry has often been accounted for by reference to the concept of markedness (e.g., Eberhard, 1997 ; Eberhard et al, 2005 ): singular nouns are unmarked, whereas plural nouns are marked, thus, only features from the latter can interfere with computing the inflection of the verb. Given that we found an attraction effect with singular local nouns, our data suggest that the effect of markedness on the generation of agreement may be graded rather than categorical, with marked plural local nouns exerting a stronger effect on the choice of the verb form than unmarked singular local nouns (for similar conclusions, see Haskell et al, 2010 ; Hanke et al, 2013 ). The attraction asymmetry thus continues to serve as an important testing ground for theories about the processes and representations underlying agreement.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Keeping it simple: studying grammatical encoding with lexically reduced item sets

2014

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Compared to the large body of work on lexical access, little research has been done on grammatical encoding in language production. An exception is the generation of subject-verb agreement. Here, two key findings have been reported: (1) speakers make more agreement errors when the head and local noun of a phrase mismatch in number than when they match [e.g., the key to the cabinet(s)]; and (2) this attraction effect is asymmetric, with stronger attraction for singular than for plural head nouns. Although these findings are robust, the cognitive processes leading to agreement errors and their significance for the generation of correct agreement are not fully understood. We propose that future studies of agreement, and grammatical encoding in general, may benefit from using paradigms that tightly control the variability of the lexical content of the material. We report two experiments illustrating this approach. In both of them, the experimental items featured combinations of four nouns, four color adjectives, and two prepositions. In Experiment 1, native speakers of Dutch described pictures in sentences such as the circle next to the stars is blue. In Experiment 2, they carried out a forced-choice task, where they read subject noun phrases (e.g., the circle next to the stars) and selected the correct verb-phrase (is blue or are blue) with a button press. Both experiments showed an attraction effect, with more errors after subject phrases with mismatching, compared to matching head and local nouns. This effect was stronger for singular than plural heads, replicating the attraction asymmetry. In contrast, the response times recorded in Experiment 2 showed similar attraction effects for singular and plural head nouns. These results demonstrate that critical agreement phenomena can be elicited reliably in lexically reduced contexts. We discuss the theoretical implications of the findings and the potential and limitations of studies using lexically simple materials.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 61%

Keeping it simple: studying grammatical encoding with lexically reduced item sets

2014

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“…Despite the prevalence of background noise in everyday language contexts, research examining the effect of noise on speech production has been dominated by studies of acoustic-related changes in production. Very little work has investigated how noise affects higher-level properties of language such as syntax (but see Hanke, 2014 ; Harmon et al, 2021 ; Kemper et al, 2003 ). Moreover, moving beyond the descriptive level, we have lacked a satisfying account of why higher-level changes might be observed.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Noise-induced differences in the complexity of spoken language

Pham

Karuza

2022

Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology

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Although speaking in noisy environments is a common occurrence, few studies have investigated how noise affects language production beyond the acoustic level. In seeking to differentiate between speaker- and listener-oriented modifications, this study examines the effect of noise on the complexity of language production and examines whether cognitive control predicts noise-induced modifications. Participants completed a picture description task via videoconferencing software while both the speaker (the participant) and listener (the experimenter) were exposed to multi-talker babble. Speakers produced fewer T-units, clauses, and words as well as fewer, but longer, unfilled pauses in noise. Degree of reduction in number of clauses, words, and unfilled pauses was significantly associated with weaker cognitive control. Thus, we consider these modifications to be speaker-oriented, driven by the distracting nature of noise. However, participants also produced fewer filled pauses and mazes in noise. These modifications were not significantly correlated with cognitive control, and they diverge from prior work demonstrating that speakers tend to produce more disfluencies when they alone shoulder the burden of a noisy environment. This pattern of results suggests speakers may alter their speech to alleviate cognitive burden on themselves as well as to facilitate comprehension for their listener.

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On the laws of attraction at cocktail parties: Babble noise influences the production of number agreement

Cited by 2 publications

References 58 publications

Keeping it simple: studying grammatical encoding with lexically reduced item sets

Keeping it simple: studying grammatical encoding with lexically reduced item sets

Noise-induced differences in the complexity of spoken language

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