LANGUAGE PRODUCTION - METHODS AND METHODOLOGIES

Methodological problems have been a longstanding barrier to the system atic exploration of issues in language production. Recently, however, production research has broadened beyond traditional observational app roaches to include a diverse set of experimental paradigms. This revie w surveys the observational and experimental methods that are used to study production, the questions to which the methods have been directe d, and the theoretical assumptions that the methods embody. Although t ailored to the investigation of language production, most of the metho ds are closely related to others that are widely employed in cognitive research. The common denominator of these procedures is verbal respon ding. Because the processing complexities of verbal responses are some times overlooked in research on memory, perception, attention, and lan guage comprehension, the methodological assumptions of production rese arch have implications for other experimental procedures that are used to elicit, spoken words or sentences.