The role of working memory for syntactic formulation in language production

Cognitive constraints on advance planning of sentence intonation

Pitch peaks tend to be higher at the beginning of longer than shorter sentences (e.g., 'A farmer is pulling donkeys' vs 'A farmer is pulling a donkey and goat'), whereas pitch valleys at the ends of sentences are rather constant for a given speaker. These data seem to imply that speakers avoid dropping their voice pitch too low by planning the height of sentence-initial pitch peaks prior to speaking. However, the length effect on sentence-initial pitch peaks appears to vary across different types of sentences, speakers and languages. Therefore, the notion that speakers plan sentence intonation in advance due to the limitations in low voice pitch leaves part of the data unexplained. Consequently, this study suggests a complementary cognitive account of length-dependent pitch scaling. In particular, it proposes that the sentence-initial pitch raise in long sentences is related to high demands on mental resources during the early stages of sentence planning. To tap into the cognitive underpinnings of planning sentence intonation, this study adopts the methodology of recording eye movements during a picture description task, as the eye movements are the established approximation of the real-time planning processes. Measures of voice pitch (Fundamental Frequency) and incrementality (eye movements) are used to examine the relationship between (verbal) working memory (WM), incrementality of sentence planning and the height of sentence-initial pitch peaks.

A Cross-Linguistic Study of Individual Differences in Speech Planning

Although previous research has shown that there exist individual and cross-linguistic differences in planning strategies during language production, little is known about how such individual differences might vary depending on which language a speaker is planning. The present series of studies examines individual differences in planning strategies exhibited by speakers of American English, French, and German. Participants were asked to describe images on a computer monitor while their eye movements were monitored. In addition, we measured participants' working memory capacity and speed of processing. The results indicate that in the present study, English and German were planned less incrementally (further in advance) prior to speech onset compared to French, which was planned more incrementally (not as far in advance). Crucially, speed of processing predicted the scope of planning for French speakers, but not for English or German speakers. These results suggest that the different planning strategies that are invoked by syntactic choices available in different languages are associated with the tendency for speakers to rely on different cognitive support systems as they plan sentences.