TY - JOUR

T1 - Motor movement matters: the flexible abstractness of inner speech

AU - Oppenheim, G.M.

AU - Dell, G.S.

PY - 2010/12/1

Y1 - 2010/12/1

N2 - Inner speech is typically characterized as either the activation of abstract linguistic representations or a de- tailed articulatory simulation that lacks only the production of sound. We present a study of the speech errors that occur during the inner recitation of tongue-twister-like phrases. Two forms of inner speech were tested: inner speech without articulatory movements and articulated (mouthed) inner speech. Although mouthing one’s inner speech could reasonably be assumed to require more articulatory planning, prominent theories assume that such planning should not affect the experience of inner speech and, consequently, the errors that are “heard” during its production. The errors occurring in articulated inner speech exhibited the phonemic similarity effect and the lexical bias effect—two speech-error phenomena that, in overt speech, have been localized to an articulatory- feature-processing level and a lexical–phonological level, respectively. In contrast, errors in unarticulated inner speech did not exhibit the phonemic similarity effect—just the lexical bias effect. The results are interpreted as support for a flexible abstraction account of inner speech. This conclusion has ramifications for the embodiment of language and speech and for the theories of speech production.

AB - Inner speech is typically characterized as either the activation of abstract linguistic representations or a de- tailed articulatory simulation that lacks only the production of sound. We present a study of the speech errors that occur during the inner recitation of tongue-twister-like phrases. Two forms of inner speech were tested: inner speech without articulatory movements and articulated (mouthed) inner speech. Although mouthing one’s inner speech could reasonably be assumed to require more articulatory planning, prominent theories assume that such planning should not affect the experience of inner speech and, consequently, the errors that are “heard” during its production. The errors occurring in articulated inner speech exhibited the phonemic similarity effect and the lexical bias effect—two speech-error phenomena that, in overt speech, have been localized to an articulatory- feature-processing level and a lexical–phonological level, respectively. In contrast, errors in unarticulated inner speech did not exhibit the phonemic similarity effect—just the lexical bias effect. The results are interpreted as support for a flexible abstraction account of inner speech. This conclusion has ramifications for the embodiment of language and speech and for the theories of speech production.

KW - LANGUAGE & LINGUISTICS

KW - PSYCHOLOGY

KW - EXPERIMENTAL

U2 - 10.3758/MC.38.8.1147

DO - 10.3758/MC.38.8.1147

M3 - Article

VL - 38

SP - 1147

EP - 1160

JO - Memory and Cognition

JF - Memory and Cognition

SN - 0090-502X

IS - 8

ER -