Anticipatory mechanisms influence articulation in the form preparation task.

Abstract

In the form preparation task, participants verbally produce words in small sets, which either overlap on an early phonological fragment or contrast on that fragment. A canonical account of word-form encoding assumes a sequential phonological encoding phase necessarily preceding subsequent retrieval of a discrete phonetic motor plan. This account assumes that acoustic onset and speech onset are equivalent, and that speech onset never precedes complete processing of the stimulus. In two form preparation experiments, we examined the influence of anticipatory processes on preacoustic lip articulation. We used motion-tracked digital video to measure continuous changes in vertical lip aperture. In sets with initial segment overlap, participants configured their lips to anticipate upcoming aerodynamic demands, before stimulus presentation. Anticipatory posturing arose even when initial segment was only 75% certain. These findings appear inconsistent with extant speech models that assume ballistic execution of a fully encoded, certainly known response.

Predicting One’s Turn With Both Body and Mind: Anticipatory Speech Postures During Dyadic Conversation

“…Prior studies have reported similar effects for isolated word production tasks ( Kawamoto et al, 2014 ; Drake and Corley, 2015 ; Tilsen et al, 2016 ; Krause and Kawamoto, 2019 , 2020a ; Tilsen, 2020 ). We believe, however, that this is the first report of such effects in an ecological conversation task.…”

On the timing and coordination of articulatory movements: Historical perspectives and current theoretical challenges

“…However, speakers also produce anticipatory posturing when having partial or less than certain information. Krause and Kawamoto (2019, 2020) gave speakers a series of word‐reading tasks. When the initial consonant was at least 75% predictable, speakers shaped their lips to anticipate it, before the word appeared onscreen.…”

Automatic Motion Tracking of Lips using Digital Video and OpenFace 2.0

“…The benefits offered to phoneticians are obvious and well-established: Kinematics afford a detailed characterization of the motoric mechanisms of speech. However, as we have argued elsewhere (e.g., Kawamoto, Liu, Lee, & Grebe, 2014;Krause & Kawamoto, 2019) psycholinguists examining verbal reaction times also have much to gain from employing articulatory methods. For one thing, articulatory operationalizations of verbal reaction time often tell a very different story than do acoustic ones, in part because different speech-related movements are not obligatorily phase-locked (Kawamoto et al, 2014;Holbrook, Kawamoto, & Liu, 2019).…”