PSY246 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Focal Dystonia, Dystonia, Soundexchange
2 Jun 2018
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Language Production – Week 10
Lecture topics:
• 1. Contrasting, speaking, writing, singing
• 2. Four levels at which we can analyse speech production
• 3. Types of speech errors and their significance
• 4. Theories of speech production and communication
• 5. Disorders of language and music
• 6. The role of speech prosody and gesture
Speech vs. Writing –
• Similarities:
o Both involve words, phrases, sentences, ideas
o Both involve planning the meaning to be communicated
o Proceeds on a phrase-by-phrase or clause-by-clause basis
• Differences:
o Speakers more often know their audience
o Speakers get moment to moment feedback from listeners
o Speakers have less time to plan
o Writers typically have direct access to what they have written so far
o Different effects on memory? – more of a burden on speech than
writing
Speaking vs. Singing –
• Similarities
o Both involve vocalization of words and phrases
o Both involve linguistic and vocal planning prior to vocalization
o Both draw on brain resources with language capacity (speaking
specialises more in left hemisphere; singing on right)
o Proceeds on a phrase by phrase or clause by clause basis
• Differences
o Speakers usually work out what they say as they say it; singers usually
sing memorized sequences of pitches and words
o Speakers vary the pitch of voices intuitively; singers adhere to specific
changes in pitch called the melody
o Speaking is often casual interaction; singing is often formal
o Speaking focuses on communication; singing on aesthetic experience
o Speaking involves ‘turn taking’; singers often all sing at once
Speech as ‘improvisation’ –
• Need strategies to reduce processing demands
• Pre-formulation:
o Re-using phrases that were used before
▪ 70% of our speech involves word combinations we use
repeatedly
▪ ‘OMG’, ‘are you kidding me’, ‘that is amazing’
• Under-specification:
o Using simplified expressions instead of being specific
▪ ‘and such’, ‘or something’, ‘and so forth’, ‘things like that’
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Four levels of speech production –
• Semantic level (meaning)
• Syntactic level (how you string words together, the order)
• Morphological level (‘cat’ but also ed, pre, s, un, ing)
• Phonological level (actual sounds; mat = 3 sounds – m, a, t)
• They may be handled at different ‘stages of processing’
• Progresses from high-level plans to low-level implementation
What are the units of planning?
• Clauses (subject-verb: “I walked home”) – a whole idea
o Pauses tend to occur before new clauses
o Word-exchange errors can occur anywhere in a clause
• Phrases (no subject-verb: “best-friend”)
o Pauses are longer before complex than simple phrases, BUT
o Word-exchange errors can occur across different phases
• Flexibility in planning
o Pauses can occur before either clauses and phrases
o Amount of planning depends on speed/fluency demands
Breakdown in speech planning –
Errors can be:
• Anticipatory
o Planned sound is vocalized too early
o Cuff of coffee, Railtroad Tracks
• Perseveratory
o Earlier sound is mistakenly repeated
o Chicken nookle soup, Little Led Riding Hood
• Tongue twisters: which errors are most common?
o She sells seashells by the seashore
o I saw Susie sitting in a shoeshine shop
Speech errors: a window to mental processes!
• Other types of speech errors
o Morpheme-exchange errors
o Word-exchange errors
o Sound-exchange errors (spoonerisms – humorous effect e.g. you hissed
my mystery lectures) e.g. tup of cea (cup of tea)
o Lexical-selection error
o Semantic substitution (e.g. where is my briefcase instead of ‘bag’)
o Number-agreement error (e.g. ‘a number of animals indicate’)
• Error detection
o Done by comprehension or speech production system?
▪ Evidence from aphasics favours speech-production system
Theories of speech production –
1. Spreading-activation theory (Dell)
• “Parallel processing” – neural network
• Nodes vary in activation, which spreads to related nodes
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
