Role of cognitive control in resolving two types of conflict during spoken word production

A theoretically- and clinically-important issue for understanding word retrieval is how speakers resolve conflict during linguistic tasks. This study investigated two types of conflict resolution: prepotent conflict, when one dominant incorrect response must be suppressed; and underdetermined conflict, when multiple reasonable responses compete. The congruency sequence effect paradigm was used to assess trial-to-trial changes in reaction time and accuracy during word production tasks with either prepotent or underdetermined conflict. Pictures were named faster on trials with low-conflict as compared to high-conflict regardless of conflict type. This effect was modulated by the amount of conflict experienced on the previous trial for both tasks. These results suggest that resolution of underdetermined and prepotent conflict may engage the same general cognitive mechanism. This work expands our understanding of the relationship between cognitive control and word production and can inform clinical approaches for people with anomia.

Phonological Preparation in Korean: Phoneme, or Syllable or Another Unit?

With three experiments, the present study investigated the primary phonological preparation (PP) unit in spoken word production in Korean. Adopting the form preparation paradigm, 23 native Korean speakers named pictures in homogenous or heterogenous lists. In homogenous lists, the names of the pictures shared the same initial phoneme (Experiment 1), initial consonant + vowel (i.e., CV) body (Experiment 2), or initial consonant + vowel + consonant (CVC) syllable (Experiment 3); and in heterogenous lists, the names did not share any phonological components systematically. Compared to naming pictures in heterogenous lists, participants' naming speed was significantly faster when the initial body or the initial syllable of target names was shared. However, this form preparation effect was not shown in Experiment 1, when only the initial phoneme was shared. These results suggested that the body serves as the primary PP unit in Korean, that is, native Korean speakers tend to plan spoken words in a body-coda fashion, probably due to a joint contribution from the strong prevalence of the CV structure and early literacy instructional approach.

The neurobiology of taboo language processing: fMRI evidence during spoken word production

Every language has words deemed to be socially inappropriate or ‘taboo’ to utter. Taboo word production appears prominently in language disorders following brain injury. Yet, we know little about the cognitive and neural mechanisms involved in processing taboo compared to neutral language. In the present study, we introduced taboo distractor words in the picture word interference paradigm during functional magnetic resonance imaging to investigate how these words influence spoken word production. Taboo distractor words significantly slowed picture-naming latencies compared to neutral words. This interference effect was associated with increased blood oxygen level dependent signal across a distributed thalamo-cortical network including bilateral anterior cingulate cortex and left inferior frontal gyrus, left posterior middle temporal gyrus and right thalamus. We interpret our findings as being consistent with an account integrating both domain-general attention-capture/distractor blocking and language-specific mechanisms in processing taboo words during spoken word production.

Investigating the flow of information during speaking: the impact of morpho-phonological, associative, and categorical picture distractors on picture naming

In three experiments, participants named target pictures by means of German compound words (e.g., Gartenstuhl–garden chair), each accompanied by two different distractor pictures (e.g., lawn mower and swimming pool). Targets and distractor pictures were semantically related either associatively (garden chair and lawn mower) or by a shared semantic category (garden chair and wardrobe). Within each type of semantic relation, target and distractor pictures either shared morpho-phonological (word-form) information (Gartenstuhl with Gartenzwerg, garden gnome, and Gartenschlauch, garden hose) or not. A condition with two completely unrelated pictures served as baseline. Target naming was facilitated when distractor and target pictures were morpho-phonologically related. This is clear evidence for the activation of word-form information of distractor pictures. Effects were larger for associatively than for categorically related distractors and targets, which constitute evidence for lexical competition. Mere categorical relatedness, in the absence of morpho-phonological overlap, resulted in null effects (Experiments 1 and 2), and only speeded target naming when effects reflect only conceptual, but not lexical processing (Experiment 3). Given that distractor pictures activate their word forms, the data cannot be easily reconciled with discrete serial models. The results fit well with models that allow information to cascade forward from conceptual to word-form levels.

Effect of sound similarity and word position on lexical selection

Spoken word production research has shown that phonological information influences lexical selection. It remains unclear, however, whether this phonological information is specified for its phonological environment (e.g., word position) or its phonetic (allophonic) realization. To examine this, two definition naming experiments were performed during which subjects produced lexical targets (e.g., "balcony") in response to the targets' definitions ("deck higher than a building's first floor") after naming a series of phonologically related or unrelated primes. Subjects produced target responses significantly more often when the primes were phonologically related to the target, regardless of whether the phonologically related primes matched the target's word position or did not. For example, subjects were equally primed to produce the target "balcony" after the prime "ballast" or "unbalanced" relative to unrelated primes. Moreover, equal priming occurred irrespective of phonological environment or phonetic realization. The results support models of spoken word production which include context-independent phonological representations.

The neural basis of inhibitory effects of semantic and phonological neighbors in spoken word production

Theories of word production and word recognition generally agree that multiple word candidates are activated during processing. The facilitative and inhibitory effects of these "lexical neighbors" have been studied extensively using behavioral methods and have spurred theoretical development in psycholinguistics, but relatively little is known about the neural basis of these effects and how lesions may affect them. This study used voxel-wise lesion overlap subtraction to examine semantic and phonological neighbor effects in spoken word production following left hemisphere stroke. Increased inhibitory effects of near semantic neighbors were associated with inferior frontal lobe lesions, suggesting impaired selection among strongly activated semantically related candidates. Increased inhibitory effects of phonological neighbors were associated with posterior superior temporal and inferior parietal lobe lesions. In combination with previous studies, these results suggest that such lesions cause phonological-to-lexical feedback to more strongly activate phonologically related lexical candidates. The comparison of semantic and phonological neighbor effects and how they are affected by left hemisphere lesions provides new insights into the cognitive dynamics and neural basis of phonological, semantic, and cognitive control processes in spoken word production.