Speech Production
- Disfleuncies
- The Units of Speech Production
- Models of Speech Production
- Speech Production and the Brain
Disfluencies
- Lashleys Problem of Serial Order Behavior
- Famous Disfluencies
- A Typology of Disfluencies
- Slips of the Tongue
- Experimentally Induced Speech ErrorsCharmichael, Hogan &
Walter (1932)
Lashleys Problem of Serial Order Behavior
- “When we think in words, the thoughts come in grammatical form
with subject, verb, object, and modifying clauses falling into place
without our having the slightest perception of how the sentence structure
is produced.”
- Is it always that easy?
Famous Disfluencies
- Freudian Slips
- Spoonerisms
- Malapropisms
Freudian Slips
- “I had an argument with my girlfriend!” --> “I
had an argument with my mother!”
- Represents unconscious thoughts impinging on behavior.
Spoonerisms
- Rev. William Spooner
- “You have missed all my history lectures.” -->“You
have hissed all my mystery lectures.”
- “You have wasted the whole term.” -->“You have
tasted the whole worm.”
- “The dear old queen.” -->“The queer old dean.”
Malapropisms
- Named for Mrs. Malaprop, a character noted for her amusing misuse
of words in Richard Brinsley Sheridan's (1775) comedy “The Rivals”.
- “I am sure I have done everything in my power since I exploded
the affair; long ago I laid my positive conjunction on her, never
to think on the fellow again; I have since laid Sir Anthony’s
preposition before her; but, I am sorry to say, she seems resolved
to decline every particle that I enjoin her.”
Norm Crosby
- King of the Malaprop
- Speaks from his 'diagram'.
- Drinks 'decapitated' coffee.
A Typology of Disfleuncies
- Silent Pause: “Turn on the / / heater switch.”
- Filled Pause: “Turn on, uh, the heater switch.”
- Repeats: “Turn on the heater / the heater switch.”
- False Starts: “Turn on the stove / the heater switch.”
- Corrections: “Turn on the stove switch - I mean, the heater
switch.”
- Interjections: “Turn on, what, the heater switch.”
- Stutters: “Turn on the h-h-h-heater switch.”
- Slips of the Tongue
Slips of the Tongue
- Anticipations: “take my bike” --> “bake my bike”
- Perseverations: “pulled a tantrum” --> “pulled
a pantrum”
- Reversals: “Katz and Fodor” --> “fats and kodor”
- Blends: “grizzly” + “ghastly” --> “grastly”
- Haplologies: “Post Toasties” -->“Posties”
- Misdirivations: “an intervening node” --> “an
intervenient node”
- Word Substitutions: “before the place opens” --> “before
the place closes”
Experimentally Induced Speech Errors
- Large corpora of naturally occurring speech errors have been collected.
- Problems with naturally occurring errors include:
- bias
- calculating base rates
- Speech errors can also be induced in the lab.
- Read each pair of words out loud as quickly as you can.
Experimentally Induced Speech Errors
- Participants are presented with “bias pairs”.
- dart-board
- dust-bin
- duck-bill
- These are followed by a “target pair”.
- This leads to a slip of the tongue in 10% -15% of all responses.
The Units of Speech Production
- The analysis of speech errors helps us identify the units of speech
production.
- Sentences
- Phrases
- Words
- Morphemes
- Syllables
- Phonemes
- Features
Features
- “big and fat” --> “pig and vat” (Voicing
Reversal)
- “cedars of Lebanon” --> “cedars of Lemadon”
(Nasality Reversal)
- “he’s a vile person” --> “he’s a file
person” (Voicelessness Anticipation)
Phonemes
- “a reading list” --> “a leading list” (Consonant
Anticipation)
- “a phonological rule” --> “a phonological fool”
(Consonant Perseveration)
- “fill the pool” --> “fool the pill” (Vowel
Reversal)
- Are phoneme errors more likely than chance to produce a word? (lexical
bias)
Syllables
- “unanimity of opinion” --> “unamity of opinion”
(Syllable Deletion)
- “Stockewll and Schacter” --> “Schachwell and Stockter”
(Syllable Reversal)
- Syllables seem to obey a “structural law of syllable place”.
Initial syllables interact with initial syllables, medial with medial,
and final with final.
Morphemes
- “rules of word formation” --> words of rule formation”
(Morpheme Reversal)
- “there’s a good likelihood” --> “there’s
a good likeliness” (Misdirivation)
- Are morphologically complex words stored in the lexicon?
Words
- “tend to turn out” --> “turn to tend out”
(Word Reversal)
- “I love to dance” --> “I dance to love” (Word
Reversal)
- “I really must go” --> “I must really go”
(Word Reversal)
- Are errors more likely between words that have similar sounds or
meanings? (similarity effects)
Phrases
- “A hummingbird was attracted by the red color of the feeder.”
? “The red color was attracted by the a hummingbird of the feeder.”
(Noun Phrase Reversal)
- When speakers correct themselves they often backtrack to the beginning
of the constituent containing the error.
- “The doctor looked up Joe’s nose, that is up Joe’s
left nostril.”
- Word reversals usually don’t cross phrase boundaries.
Sentences
- Pauses (filled and unfilled) are longest between sentences.
- The more complex a sentence is, the longer the pause that precedes
it.
- When pauses are attenuated by using feedback (a light), errors increase
(Beattie & Bradbury, 1979).
Models of Speech Production
- Fromkin’s Utterance Generator Model (1971)
- Dell’s InteractiveModel (1986)
- Questions
Fromkin's Utterance Generator Model (1971)
- Six Stages of Processing
- Stage 1: A Meaning to be Conveyed is Generated
- Stage 2: The Message is Mapped Onto a Syntactic Structure
- Stage 3: Intonation Contours are Generated
- Stage 4: Words are Selected from the Lexicon
- Stage 5: Phonological Specification
- Stage 6: Generation of Motor Commands
- This model is rule based.
- Processing in this model is strictly top-down.
Dell's Interactive Model
- Includes three levels of representation.
- Syntax
- Morphology
- Phonology
- Highly Interactive
- Based on Spreading Activation and Inhibition
- Feedback between the phonological and lexical levels gives rise
to lexical bias and similarity effects.
Questions
- How would Fromkin’s model explain:
- Lexical Bias
- Similarity Effects
Speech Production and the Brian
- Agrammatism
- Jargon Aphasia
- Anomia
- Questions
Agrammatism
- Example: Broca’s Aphasia
- Impaired Word Order
- Some parts of speech are better preserved than others.
- Also includes comprehension deficits.
Jargon Aphasia
- Example: Wernicke's Aphasia
- A word-finding deficit.
- Syntactic knowledge is largely preserved.
- Patients often substitute words with similar meanings or sounds.
- Patients make up words.
Anomia
- An impairment in naming objects.
- Semantic Anomia
- A semantic impairment
- Patients appear to suffer interference between related concepts
(e.g., tiger-lion).
- Some patients can name natural kinds but not human artifacts,
or vice versa.
- Phonological Anomia
- A phonological impairment.
- Performance on semantic tasks is normal.
- Similar to the tip-of-the-tongue state.
Questions
- How would Fromkin’s model explain:
- Agrammatism
- Jargon Aphasia
- Semantic Anomia
- Phonological Anomia
The End!
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