Abstract
It has been argued that speech production errors are monitored by the same neural system involved in monitoring other types of action errors. Behavioral evidence has shown that speech errors can be detected and corrected prior to articulation, yet the neural basis for such pre-articulatory speech error monitoring is poorly understood. The current study investigated speech error monitoring using a phoneme-substitution task known to elicit speech errors. Stimulus-locked event-related potential (ERP) analyses comparing correct and incorrect utterances were used to assess pre-articulatory error monitoring and response-locked ERP analyses were used to assess post-articulatory monitoring. Our novel finding in the stimulus-locked analysis revealed that words that ultimately led to a speech error were associated with a larger P2 component at midline sites (FCz, Cz, and CPz). This early positivity may reflect the detection of an error in speech formulation, or a predictive mechanism to signal the potential for an upcoming speech error. The data also revealed that general conflict monitoring mechanisms are involved during this task as both correct and incorrect responses elicited an anterior N2 component typically associated with conflict monitoring. The response-locked analyses corroborated previous observations that self-produced speech errors led to a fronto-central error-related negativity (ERN). These results demonstrate that speech errors can be detected prior to articulation, and that speech error monitoring relies on a central error monitoring mechanism.
Highlights
Speech production seems to be relatively effortless, speech errors occur that can often lead to embarrassment for the speaker; for example, addressing a law-enforcement official as “Ociffer,” rather than “Officer.” It has been estimated that we engage in revisions of speech errors during ∼10% of our utterances (Nooteboom, 1980)
Recent findings have demonstrated that an electrophysiological correlate of error processing, called the errorrelated negativity (ERN), that is commonly observed in manual action errors is elicited during overt speech errors in picture naming tasks (Ganushchak and Schiller, 2008a; Riès et al, 2011)
Stimulus-locked analyses revealed that stimuli for which participants failed to correctly substitute the required phoneme did not elicit increased recruitment of general conflict monitoring resources, at least as measured by the N2 component
Summary
Speech production seems to be relatively effortless, speech errors occur that can often lead to embarrassment for the speaker; for example, addressing a law-enforcement official as “Ociffer,” rather than “Officer.” It has been estimated that we engage in revisions of speech errors during ∼10% of our utterances (Nooteboom, 1980). Recent findings have demonstrated that an electrophysiological correlate of error processing, called the errorrelated negativity (ERN), that is commonly observed in manual action errors (see Holroyd and Coles, 2002; Botvinick et al, 2004) is elicited during overt speech errors in picture naming tasks (Ganushchak and Schiller, 2008a; Riès et al, 2011). This finding suggests that the same monitoring system involved in the detection of manual action errors is involved in the detection of speech errors. The first goal of the current study was to determine whether there are neurophysiological signatures of error monitoring during speech formulation, rather than after it is complete
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