Effects of delay, length, and frequency on onset RTs and word durations:Articulatory planning uses flexible units but cannot be prepared

Cristina Romani*, Priya Silverstein, Dinesh Ramoo, Andrew Olson

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

There is debate regarding whether most articulatory planning occurs offline (rather than online) and whether the products of off-line processing are stored in a separate articulatory buffer until a large enough chunk is ready for production. This hypothesis predicts that delayed naming conditions should reduce not only onset RTs but also word durations because articulatory plans will be buffered and kept ready. We have tested this hypothesis with young control speakers, an aphasic speaker , and an age and education-matched speaker, using repetition, reading and picture-naming tasks. Contrary to the off-line hypothesis, delayed conditions strongly reduced onset RTs, but had no benefit for word durations. In fact, we found small effects in the opposite direction. Moreover, frequency and imageability affected word durations even in delayed conditions, consistent with articulatory processing continuing on-line. The same pattern of results was found in CS and in control participants, strengthening confidence in our results. There is debate regarding whether most articulatory planning occurs offline (rather than online) and whether the results of off-line processing are stored in a separate articulatory buffer until a large enough chunk is ready for production. This hypothesis predicts that delayed naming conditions should reduce not only onset RTs but also word durations because articulatory plans will be buffered and kept ready. We have tested young control speakers, an aphasic speaker, and an age and education matched speaker, using repetition, reading and picture naming tasks. Contrary to the off-line hypothesis, delayed conditions strongly reduced onset RTs, but had no benefit for word durations. In fact, we found small effects in the opposite direction. Moreover, frequency and imageability affected word durations even in delayed conditions, consistent with articulatory processing continuing on-line. The same pattern of results was found in CS and in control participants, strengthening confidence in our results.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)170-195
JournalCognitive Neuropsychology
Volume39
Issue number3-4
Early online date19 Jun 2022
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 21 Jun 2022

Bibliographical note

© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/), which permits non-commercial re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited, and is not altered, transformed, or built upon in any way.

Funding Information:
This work was supported by a Ph.D. studentship to Dinesh Ramoo granted by the University of Birmingham and by a master’s dissertation carried out by Priya Silverstein, at Aston University; and by a small grant from the Experimental Psychology Society.

Keywords

  • Word production
  • aphasia
  • articulatory buffer
  • effects of preparation
  • word durations
  • word frequency
  • word length

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Effects of delay, length, and frequency on onset RTs and word durations:Articulatory planning uses flexible units but cannot be prepared'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this