Language Production Flashcards
week 11
what is not a prosodic cue?
frequency
the garden path model of parsing ncan be described as:
a two-stage, serial processing model
what is not a type of inference?
embellishment
is speech production effortless?
○ 2-3 words per second (~150 words per minute)
○ Probably not as effortless as we think it is.
* Use strategies to reduce processing demands when planning speech:
○ Deciding what we are going to say before we say it
§ Cognitively demanding
what is preformulation?
production of phrases used before A piece of cake/ Under the weather
§ Go to well used phrases (generically understood) to make speech production easier
Consensus in understanding
what is under specification?
use of simplified expressions …or something/ …and things like that
§ Simplified expressions that make understanding speech easier.
Attached to sentences to simplify what we are saying.
how does intoxication infliuence language?
- Reveals complexities of speech production
○ Requires effort.
○ Impairs attention, memory, thinking and reasoning
○ Produce more dysfluencies (e.g. stammering, stuttering) (1)
○ Slower speaking rate (1)
○ Reduction in richness and creativity (2)
(1) Hollien et al (2001); (2) Reichel & Kisler (2002)
what is speech planning?
- First stage of speech production
- Might occur at different levels
○ Clause
§ Part of the sentence containing a subject and a verb
□ The dog (subject) is sleeping (verb)…
○ Phrase
§ A group of words that express a single idea
□ …on the bed
- Might occur at different levels
what is a clause level speech production?
Speech errors provide evidence that speech planning extends over the entire clause
We have to have planned the sentences before we say it- suggests that speech planning may not only occur at clause level
what is phrase level speech production?
Describe moving pictures
has two differing conditions
what are the 2 different levels of phrase level speech production?
Simple initial noun phrase
§ The tie moves above the candle and the foot
§ One noun at the start of the phrase
2. Conjoined initial noun phrase
§ The tie and the candle move above the foot
§ Two nouns at the start of the phrase.
* Simple initial noun phrase
○ The tie moves above the candle and the shoe
* Conjoined initial noun phrase
○ The tie and the candle move above the shoe
Martin et al (2004)
what did Martin et al (2004) into phrase level processing find?
- Simple initial noun phrase
○ The tie moves above the candle and the foot- Conjoined initial noun phrase
○ The tie and the candle move above the foot
* Took longer (~77ms) to initiate conjoined phrase
At phrase level when speech becomes more complicated (more nouns in sentence) it takes us longer to produce (and plan) the sentence
- Conjoined initial noun phrase
what are speech errors?
- Generally accurate when speaking, but sometimes prone to error
- Majority of errors are not random, but systematic
○ Don’t happen at random
○ Specific speech errors that we can make - Provide insight into how cognitive systems work
What happens when we plan and produce speech
- Majority of errors are not random, but systematic
what is word exchange? give an example
Speech planning extends over the entire clause
- My chair seems empty without my room
what is sound (phoneme) exchange? give an example.
Sounds of words planned shortly in advance
Sounds have switched (sound exchange)
- bedbugs to budbegs
what is spoonerism? give an example.
Initial letter of two words are switched
First letter of two words are switched
- saying “go and shake a tower” instead of “go and take a shower”
what is semantic substitution? give an example.
○ Word replaced by another with similar meaning (semantically similar)
§ Where is my cricket bat?
Where is my cricket racket?
what is morpheme exchange? give an example
○ Inflexions (first few letter in a word) /suffixes (last few letters in a word) attached to wrong words
○ Groups of letters are swapped.
§ He has already trunked two packs
what is number agreement? give an example.
○ The team has won the match
○ Collective noun is singular, but… The team have won the match …resembles plural noun
Word attached to a plural can be incorrect.
what tupe of error is: “i saw you fight a liar”
spoonerism
what type of error is: “knife light”
sound exchange
what type of error is: “i must let the house out of the cat”
word exchange
what type of error is: :she has already paired two soles”
morpheme exchange
what type of error is: “the government have made a mess of things”
number agreement
what type of error is: “he used the ladle to flip the pancakes”
semantic substitution
what are the two major theories of speech production?
- Spreading- activation theory (Dell, 1986)
○ Processing occurs in parallel at different levels (semantic, lexical, phonological) - WEAVER ++ model (Levelt et al, 1999)
Each processing stage occurs in seriation
what is the spreading activation theory?
- Categorical rules
○ Impose constraints on items/categories that are acceptable at each level- Insertion rules
○ Select items to be spoken
Most highly activated nodes selected- To produce the speech
- Insertion rules
what are the key strengths of the spreading activation theory:
- Key strength = levels of processing interact
○ Can account for several speech production errors
○ Link between speech production and other cognitive activities (e.g. word recognition)
○ Tapping into other aspects of cognitive activities as well.- Extent interactive processes involved in speech production unclear
○ Occur less when processing demands high- the interactive process (maybe aren’t as synced/ happen as fluidly)
Don’t know the full extent of how they interact to produce speech
- Extent interactive processes involved in speech production unclear
what is the weaver++ model of speech production?
- Word-form Encoding by Activation VERification
○ Feed-forward activation in serial fashion
○ Happens in a serial fashion- Three main levels
1. Highest level: nodes representing lexical concepts (tapping into lexicon, initially- bank of words in brain)
2. Second level: nodes representing lemmas (Abstract words with syntactic/semantic features only)
○ Grammatical and semantic features- abstract words
3. Lowest level: nodes representing word forms (morphemes, letters/phonemes, sounds)
Produce speech by looking at the letters and sounds together
- Three main levels
what does the weaver++ model explain?
tip-of-the tounge state- semantic activation but phonological processing unsuccessful
and shows how speech production proceeds from meaning to sound
what are the strengths of the weaver++ model of speech production?
○ Shift focus from speech errors and toward precise timing of production processes
§ Indication of what actually happens (STEP-BY-STEP)
○ Simple model that can make testable predictions
Can test different stages to see how speech is produced.
what are the weaknesses of the weaver++ model?
○ Does not allow interaction between different levels
§ Could unlock semantic and sounding of words at the same time
○ Speech errors occur more than model predicts
Doesn’t account for all the speech errors we can produce.
what is neuropsychology?
- Study of patients with Aphasia in 19th century
○ Due to stroke, brain tumour, injury, infection, etc.
○ Impairments of language comprehension/production- Early research made distinction between two types of aphasia
Broca’s aphasia - centralised to front of the brain
Wernicke’s aphasia - centralised to the back of the brain
- Early research made distinction between two types of aphasia
what is broca’s aphasia?
- Slow, non-fluent speech
- Poor ability to produce syntactically correct sentences
○ Grammatically correct sentences - Comprehension relatively intact- understanding of speech intact
➢Problems with speech production
- Poor ability to produce syntactically correct sentences
what is wernicke’s aphasia?
- Also known as fluent or receptive aphasia
- Fluent and grammatical speech- syntactic structure of producing sentences is fluent
- Speech often lacks meaning
➢Problems with speech comprehension
what are the limiatations of only neuropsychology only looking at wernicke’s and broca’s aphasia?
- Some truth in distinction (between Broca’s and Wernicke’s aphasia), but over simplification
○ Same form of aphasia, but different impairments
§ People have different symptoms of the same disease.
○ Several different areas involved in language processing
§ More than just what is originally identified- lots of the brain is involved.
○ Patients with Broca’s aphasia have damage to Wernicke’s area (and vice versa!)
§ Not localised to one area
○ Patients also have more general problems (attention/memory)
Not restrictive to language comprehension/speech production
what are the 3 specific cognitive impairments neuropsychology focuses on?
- anomia
- agrammatism
- jargon aphasia
what is anomia?
- Experienced by all aphasics
- Impaired ability to name everyday objects
○ Problems with word retrieval
○ No problem with comprehension
§ Can understand a word even though you can’t identify it.
► Problems at phonological level
Speech is grammatically correct but cant identify an object
- Impaired ability to name everyday objects
what is agrammatism?
- Difficulties producing grammatically correct sentences
○ Short sentences with content words (nouns/verbs)
§ Can pinpoint them and identify/ say what they are
○ remove function words (the, and, in) and word endings
► Problems at lexical (syntax/grammar) levels
○ Can identify names of objects but cant provide the grammatical structure of sentences
what is jargon aphasia?
- Speech grammatically correct but have difficulties accessing correct words
○ Substitute one word for another
§ Word substitutions make it not make sense
○ Produce neologisms (made-up-words)
► Problems at phonological level
○ Speech is grammatically correct but cant identify the correct words for the sentence.
Trouble understanding sounds of words to produce the correct one.
what is the goal of laguage production?
communication
what ar ethe 3 main ways in hwich we communicate?
- linguistics
- motivation
- social
how is speech a form of communication?
- Speech nearly always occurs in a social context
- Importance of audience design
○ Need to take into account and tailor to the needs of listener(s)
○ Understand who our audience is.
Key to how we communicate in different contexts.
- Importance of audience design
what is common ground?
- Shared knowledge between speaker/listener
○ Work together to ensure mutual understanding
○ Both understand what is being said : e.g.: sarcasm, etc.- Speaker makes assumptions about the listener
○ Global: preferred language, general knowledge, shared experiences
○ Local: attending to at a given moment
§ Environmental factors, pay more attention/ annunciate words more
- Speaker makes assumptions about the listener
how is common ground cognitively demanding?
○ Difficult for speakers to focus on listeners perspective while also planning what to say next
○ High cognitive demand
* Often plan what to say without considering listeners perspective
Not responded effectively.
what are the 4 comonents of common ground?
- syntactic priming
- gestures
- prosodic cues
- discourse markers
what is sytactic priming?
○ Speaker copies words, phrases heard previously
○ Other person speaking serves as a prime/prompt
e.g.: mirror a passive snertence if you hear a passive sentence
what are gestures?
- Assumed to increase ability to communicate with listener
○ Listeners find it easier to understand
○ Communicates visually what is going on.- Also makes it easier to work-out what to say
○ Use gestures even when we cant see speaker
E.g.: talk with hands
- Also makes it easier to work-out what to say
what did horbury and Guttentag (1998) find about gestures in speech?
gave participants teh definitions of uncommon words, they had to provide word for definition.
when they couldnt use their hands, they produced fewer words (22%)
what are prosodic cues?
- How words are uttered
○ Rhythm, stress (accent), intonation (rise and fall of speech), etc.
More likely to be provided when meaning is ambiguous - e.g.: the old men and women sat on the bench
what are discourse markers?
- Words/phrases that are not directly relevant to the speaker’s message
- Speaker experiencing problems deciding what to say (Um… Er… Like…)
○ Trouble with speech production
Speaker checking that listener understands (… you know?)
- Speaker experiencing problems deciding what to say (Um… Er… Like…)
