Planning for language production: the electrophysiological signature of attention to the cue to speak

Suzanne R Jongman,Vitória Piai,Antje S Meyer

doi:10.1080/23273798.2019.1690153

Abstract

ABSTRACT In conversation, speech planning can overlap with listening to the interlocutor. It has been postulated that once there is enough information to formulate a response, planning is initiated and the response is maintained in working memory. Concurrently, the auditory input is monitored for the turn end such that responses can be launched promptly. In three EEG experiments, we aimed to identify the neural signature of phonological planning and monitoring by comparing delayed responding to not responding (reading aloud, repetition and lexical decision). These comparisons consistently resulted in a sustained positivity and beta power reduction over posterior regions. We argue that these effects reflect attention to the sequence end. Phonological planning and maintenance were not detected in the neural signature even though it is highly likely these were taking place. This suggests that EEG must be used cautiously to identify response planning when the neural signal is overridden by attention effects.

Highlights

IntroductionTurns from one speaker to the happen in rapid succession. This simple finding points to a complicated set of underlying psychological processes
In conversation, turns from one speaker to the happen in rapid succession
Experimental evidence in favour of this idea comes from studies that manipulated when critical information necessary to respond, the cue to the answer, became available, either early in the sentence or late (Barthel, Sauppe, Levinson, & Meyer, 2016; Bögels, Casillas, & Levinson, 2018; Bögels, Magyari, & Levinson, 2015)

Summary

Introduction

Turns from one speaker to the happen in rapid succession. This simple finding points to a complicated set of underlying psychological processes. From decades of research on language production, we know that even the production of a single word takes 600 ms on average (Indefrey & Levelt, 2004) Taken together, these two findings suggest that in a conversation, planning for production by the second speaker is already taking place while the first speaker is still talking. Bögels et al (2015) compared “Which character, called 007, appears in the famous movies” to “Which character from the famous movie is called 007”. In both sentences the cue “007” is the critical information necessary to start preparing the correct answer “James Bond”. Responses were initiated earlier following sentences with early versus late cues, showing that some production planning was already completed during comprehension of the interlocutor’s utterance. Levinson and Torreira (2015) propose that speaker B will start to plan his or her utterance as soon as possible during the unfolding of speaker A’s utterance

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