Capacity demands of phoneme selection in word production: New evidence from dual-task experiments.

Abstract

Three dual-task experiments investigated the capacity demands of phoneme selection in picture naming. On each trial, participants named a target picture (Task 1) and carried out a tone discrimination task (Task 2). To vary the time required for phoneme selection, the authors combined the targets with phonologically related or unrelated distractor pictures (Experiment 1) or words, which were clearly visible (Experiment 2) or masked (Experiment 3). When pictures or masked words were presented, the tone discrimination and picture naming latencies were shorter in the related condition than in the unrelated condition, which indicates that phoneme selection requires central processing capacity. However, when the distractor words were clearly visible, the facilitatory effect was confined to the picture naming latencies. This pattern arose because the visible related distractor words facilitated phoneme selection but slowed down speech monitoring processes that had to be completed before the response to the tone could be selected.

Sources of individual differences in the speed of naming objects and actions: The contribution of executive control

“…It is, for instance, possible that there are specific components in the naming process that rely particularly strongly on updating ability. For instance, it has often been proposed that conceptual planning processes and self-monitoring processes require processing capacity (e.g., Levelt, 1989;Oomen & Postma, 2002), whereas lexical access, though not an automatic process (e.g., Cook & Meyer, 2008;Ferreira & Pashler, 2002;Roelofs, 2008a), might be lower in capacity demands. Updating ability might specifically affect the efficiency of the conceptual processes, but not so much the lexical retrieval processes.…”

“…These are general cognitive processes that define and maintain the individual's goals, recruit appropriate perceptual and response mechanisms, and monitor their performance (e.g., Norman & Shallice, 1986;Posner & Petersen, 1990). When we speak, we need to choose our words wisely (e.g., considering our goals and the common ground between interlocutors; Nilsen & Graham, 2009;Ye & Zhou, 2009), allocate sufficient processing capacity to our speech planning processes (e.g., Cook & Meyer, 2008;Ferreira & Pashler, 2002;Roelofs, 2008aRoelofs, , 2008b, and monitor our speech output for appropriateness and correctness. We also need to choose and maintain an appropriate speech rate and register (e.g., child-directed speech or the formal style required for a sermon, see Meyer, Konopka, Wheeldon, & van der Meulen, 2012).…”

Effect of response context and masker type on word recognition in school-age children and adults

“…One possibility considered in the present study is that children benefit less than adults from a 4AFC context. An age effect, if observed, could be due to a range of factors, including: immature auditory memory or working memory (Hulme et al, 1984;Keller and Cowan, 1994), slower word retrieval of pictorial response alternatives (Winters and Brzoska, 1975;Kail, 1991;Cook and Meyer, 2008), and limited cognitive resources to support the comparison between stimulus memory and response alternatives.…”

Sustained Attention Ability Affects Simple Picture Naming

“…For instance, language production has been shown to impair performance on an unrelated task such as driving a car when speaking and driving co-occur (Kubose et al, 2006). Several other studies have shown similar effects and argued that word production draws from a central attentional system (Cook & Meyer, 2008;Ferreira & Pashler, 2002;Roelofs, 2008). However, it remains unclear which attention system these studies refer to.…”