L7 Language Production

Question 1

What do speech errors suggest?

Answer 1

That speech is planned before it is executed.

Question 2

What is a Morpheme?

Answer 2

smallest meaningful unit of sound.

Question 3

What is a Phoneme?

Answer 3

smallest units of sound.

Question 4

What is a Grapheme?

Answer 4

smallest unit of written language.

Question 5

What is Orthography?

Answer 5

The system for written language.

Question 6

What is Phonology?

Answer 6

The system for spoken language.

Question 7

Describe Dells spreading activation theory of speech production.

Answer 7

DELL:
Semantics

                      Syntax                        Morphology

                                     Phonemes

• Dell Believed All components of speech production are
  active at the same time
• Because of this, information can go backwards
  (interact) with other levels
• Nodes with greatest level of activation are selected

Question 8

What predictions does Dells model make?

Answer 8

Processing of words that are semantically or phonological related will result in higher speech errors

Question 9

Outline an experiment that has investigated this prediction.

Answer 9

Experiment - participants shown a picture of a priest.
Asked to complete following sentences;
- “I wanted a cookie but there were NONE left”
- “The lady went to commune to become a NUN”
- “He lit the candle with a MATCH”

The speed at which they recognised the missing word
indicated the relatedness of the target word and the concept of a priest.

Found slowest response times when completing NONE or NUN, because they were semantically similar to the target, leading to competition.

Question 10

Describe Levelts WEAVER model of speech production.

Answer 10

LEVELT:
1) Concept

                               2) Lemma (syntax)
                               3) Morphemes
                               4) Phonemes

• Processing cascades downwards, and only passes
  levels when processing at that level is complete
  (Discrete)
• Selection on each level subject to competition
• After selection, competitors are Inhibited

Question 11

What prediction does Levelts model make?

Answer 11

Processing of a concept will inhibit the selection of a semantically similar concept.

Question 12

Outline an experiment that has investigated this prediction.

Answer 12

Experiment - Participants complete a sentence, then identify an image which were either semantically related or unrelated;
- “what is the largest creature in the see?” = Whale
what is this image? (shark)
- “what keeps the doctor away?” = Apple
What is this image? (pen)

The speed at which they responded indicated how easy the concept could be recalled. Found that recall was slower for semantically related concepts.

Question 13

What speech errors can Dells model explain?

Answer 13

Can explain;
- semantically and phonologically similar substitutions 
- can account for blend errors
Can't explain;
- tip of the tongue state

Question 14

What speech errors can Levelts model explain?

Answer 14

Can explain;
- semantically similar substitutions 
- tip of the tongue state (lemma)
Can't explain;
- tip of the tongue state

Question 15

Outline a study that investigated whether speech is interactive or discrete.

Answer 15

Experiment - Participant shown two overlapping images, one in green. Told to say what the green one is. Two images were either;

• Phonologically overlapping (Dog-Doll)
• non overlapping (Bat-Doll

Dell would predict that the phonologically overlapping objects would have a quicker reaction time. Levelt would predict that the overlap would make no difference.

Found phonological overlap made reaction times quicker.