Embedded articulation: shifts in location influence speech production

Abstract

During a conversation, the durations of spoken words decrease with repeated use, potentially reflecting increased accessibility of information encoded by the words. However, prior research has assessed this shortening only within single settings, despite the fact that conversations may continue across different locales. Importantly, movement through physical space has been shown to influence the accessibility of information encountered in prior events. This experiment assessed whether reductions in speech duration would be attenuated by changing settings. Participants completed a map route duplication task with a partner. Midway through the experiment, participants changed rooms, changed partners, changed both or changed neither. Over four trials, the durations of utterances for 10 key words were measured. As hypothesised, word duration showed a negative linear pattern among those not changing settings, but a cubic pattern for those changing rooms. Specifically, utterances showed a significant increase in duration immediately after shifting rooms. In contrast to the effect of the room manipulation, changing partners did not lessen reductions in word duration. These results highlight both the situated nature of dialogical speech and extend prior work on the cognitive outcomes associated with event boundaries.

Keywords:

• speech production
• event cognition
• word duration

Acknowledgements

Support for this research was provided by a Farber Graduate Fellowship from the University of Connecticut, awarded to the first author. We thank Leonard Katz for his statistical support, as well as Alexis Doering, Paulina Gryzbowski, Joshua Kent, Devika Prasad, Christopher Russo and Akshitha Thatiparthi for their assistance in data collection and coding.

Notes

1. For participants switching rooms, the order of the rooms was counterbalanced. Room order was not found to significantly influence participants’ pattern of articulatory reduction, so this is not discussed further.