PSY 369: Psycholinguistics Language Production: Speech Errors

Even very carefully verified corpora of speech errors tend to list the error and then “the target”. However, there may be several possible targets. Saying there is one definitive target may limit conclusions about what type of error has actually occurred. Evidence that we are not very good at perceiving speech errors. Problems with speech errors

How well do we perceive speech errors? Ferber (1991) Method: Transcripts of TV and radio were studied very carefully to pick out all the speech errors. Problems with speech errors Did you hear what he said?! The tapes were played to subjects whose task was to record all the errors they heard. The errors spotted by the subjects were compared with those that actually occurred.

How well do we perceive speech errors? Ferber (1991) Problems with speech errors Results: subjects missed 50% of all the errors and of the half they identified 50% were incorrectly recorded (i.e. only 25% of speech errors were correctly recorded). Conclusion: we are bad at perceiving errors.

Experimental speech errors Can we examine speech errors in under more controlled conditions? SLIP technique: speech error elicitation technique Motley and Baars (1976)

Say the words silently as quickly as you can Say them aloud if you hear a tone

dog bone

dust ball

dead bug

doll bed

barn door “darn bore”

This technique has been found to elicit 30% of predicted speech errors. Lexical Bias effect: error frequency affected by whether the error results in real words or non-words Experimental speech errors “wrong loot” FOR “long root” “rawn loof” FOR “lawn roof “ Some basic findings More likely

Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980) Experimental speech errors Hypothesis: If preceded by phonologically and semantically biasing material (PS) If preceded by only phonologically biasing material (P). Some basic findings Predicted to be more likely

Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980) Experimental speech errors Method: 2 matched lists 20 word pairs as targets for errors e.g. bad mug  mad bug Each preceded by neutral “filler” word pairs Some basic findings mashed buns mangy bears Then 4 interference word pairs 2 phonological PLUS 2 semantic (SP) angry insect ornery fly angled inset older flu or semantically neutral controls (P) bad mug small cats rainy days red cars

Results: More errors in the Semantic and Phonological (SP) condition than in the Phonological (P) condition. Conclusion: Semantic interference may contribute to a distortion of the sound of a speaker’s intended utterance Experimental speech errors Influence of semantics (Motley, 1980) Some basic findings

Freudian slips The psycholinguistic approach Assume that “the mechanics of slips can be studied linguistically without reference to their motivation.” (Boomer and Laver, 1968) Freudian approach Held that speech errors “arise from the concurrent action - or perhaps rather, the opposing action - of two different intentions” Intended meaning + disturbing intention  speech error

Freudian slips “In the case of female genitals, in spite of many versuchungen [temptations] - I beg your pardon, versuche [experiments]…” From a politician “I like Heath. He’s tough - like Hitler - (shocked silence from reporters) - Did I say Hitler? I meant Churchill.” Are these cases of disturbing intentions or merely cases of lexical substitution (phonologically or semantically related words)?

Freudian slips Of the 94 errors listed in Psychopathology of Everyday Life 85 were made in normal speech. Ellis, (1980) 51 (60%) involved lexical substitution in which the substituting word was either similar in phonological form (27) to the intended word or related in meaning (22).

Freudian slips Of the 94 errors listed in Psychopathology of Everyday Life 85 were made in normal speech. Ellis, (1980) Only 10/94 of the errors reported by Freud were spoonerisms, and 4 were from Meringer and Mayer, 1895 (an early, linguistically oriented study). E.g. Eiwess-scheibchen (“small slices of egg white”)  Eischeissweibchen (lit. “egg-shit-female”) Alabasterbüchse (“alabaster box”)  Alabüsterbachse (büste = breast)

Freudian slips Hence, it appears that “Freud’s theory can be translated into the language of modern psycholinguistic production models without excessive difficulty.” Ellis, (1980)

Experimental Freudian slips? Hypothesis: Spoonerisms more likely when the resulting content is congruous with the situational context. Method: 90 males, same procedure previously used by Motley, 1980 (SLIP). 3 Conditions: “Electricity”, “Sex”, and Neutral.

car tires

cat toys

can tops

cup trays

tool kits “cool tits”

Same word pairs in all conditions, spoonerism targets were non-words (e.g. goxi furl  foxy girl), targets preceded by 3 phonologically biasing word pairs not semantically related to target words. Experimental Freudian slips?

Results: Electricity set:69 E, 31 S Sex set: 36 E, 76 S Neutral set: 44 E, 41 S Hence errors were in the expected direction. Conclusion: subjects’ speech encoding systems are sensitive to semantic influences from their situational cognitive set. Experimental Freudian slips?

Hypothesis: subjects with high levels of sex anxiety will make more “sex” spoonerisms than those with low sex anxiety. Method: 36 males selected on the basis of high, medium, & low sex anxiety (Mosher Sex-Guilt Inventory). SLIP task same as previous experiment but with 2 additional Sex targets and 9 Neutral targets. Experimental Freudian slips?

Results: looked at difference scores (Sex - Neutral) High sex anxiety > medium > low. Overall: Sex spoonerisms > Neutral spoonerisms. Conclusion: appears to support Freud’s view of sexual anxiety being revealed in Slips of the Tongue BUT: the experimenters (Baars and Motley) went on to show that any type of anxiety, not just sexual produced similar results. SO: anxiety was at play but it was more general, so the priming was more global. Experimental Freudian slips?

Conclusions Speech errors have provided data about the units of speech production. Phonology - consonants, vowels, and consonant clusters (/fl/) can be disordered as units. Also, phonetic features. Syllables which have morphemic status can be involved in errors. Separation of stem morphemes from affixes (inflectional and derivational). Stress? Stress errors could be examples of blends..

Conclusions Syntax -grammatical rules may be applied to the wrong unit, but produce the correct pronunciation (e.g. plural takes the correct form /s/, /z/, or /iz/. Indicates that these parts of words are marked as grammatical morphemes. Phrases (e.g. NP) and clauses can be exchanged or reversed. Words - can exchange, move, or be mis-selected. Speech errors have provided data about the units of speech production.

From thought to speech How does a mental concept get turned into a spoken utterance? Levelt, 1989, 4 stages of production: 1 Conceptualising: we conceptualise what we wish to communicate (“mentalese”). 2 Formulating: we formulate what we want to say into a linguistic plan. – Lexicalisation – Lemma Selection – Lexeme (or Phonological Form) Selection – Syntactic Planning 3 Articulating: we execute the plan through muscles in the vocal tract. 4 Self-monitoring: we monitor our speech to assess whether it is what we intended to say, and how we intended to say it.

Models of production As in comprehension, there are serial (modular) and interactive models Serial models - Garrett, Levelt et al. Interactive models - Stemberger, Dell Levelt’s monitoring stage (originally proposed by Baars) can explain much of the data that is said to favour interaction between earlier levels

An model of sentence production Three broad stages: Conceptualisation deciding on the message (= meaning to express) Formulation turning the message into linguistic representations Grammatical encoding (finding words and putting them together) Phonological encoding (finding sounds and putting them together) Articulation speaking (or writing or signing)