DEMOS · Disfluencies and Eye MOvements during Speech: what can they reveal about language production?

Disfluencies and Eye MOvements during Speech: what can they reveal about language production?

The project aims at better understanding where disfluency comes from. The term ‘disfluency’ includes various phenomena such as filled or silent pauses, repeated words, and self-corrections. Despite the high frequency of disfluencies, the question remains as to why speakers are disfluent. To date, no psycholinguistic model of language production takes into account disfluencies or explains mechanistically why they occur. A systematic investigation of the processing levels in language production is essential to uncover the mapping between disfluency and the specific level at which language difficulty is encountered. Objective 1: Where does disfluency take place? In other words, which pattern of disfluency occurs depending on lexical selection, conceptual or phonological difficulty? Additionally, because of this close coupling between speaking and seeing, eye- tracking is a promising tool for language production research, in that the pattern of eye- movements may be indicative of the mechanism underlying the disfluency. In particular, it is known that this pattern differs for correct productions and errors. It is also likely that eye-movements will differ for different kind of disfluencies. A last tool will be used to help answer these questions: neuropsychological tests. Studies of pathological discourse production always include such tests to control for other cognitive processes that would interfere with the task. This can allow us to see whether scores on other cognitive abilities predict particular disfluencies. Objective 2: Which other problems cause disfluency? Which disfluencies and eye-movements are associated with other mechanisms than difficulties in speech encoding? Conclusions: the project could help uncover disfluencies related to difficulties occurring a different levels of language production. It also showed that not all disfluencies where related to such difficulties: some reflected other cognitive processes or communicative strategies. Although DEMOS focuses on a fundamental science question, it is a mandatory step towards development of applied research projects in clinical populations characterized by a high rate of disfluencies and communicative impairment, such as ADHD, Alzheimer’s disease, or aphasia.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз