MONITORING THE TIME-COURSE OF PHONOLOGICAL ENCODING

Three experiments examined the time course of phonological encoding in speech production. A new methodology is introduced in which subjects are required to monitor their internal speech production for prespecif ied target segments and syllables. Experiment 1 demonstrated that word initial target segments are monitored significantly faster than secon d syllable initial target segments. The addition of a concurrent artic ulation task (Experiment 1b) had a limited effect on performance, excl uding the possibility that subjects are monitoring a subvocal articula tion of the carrier word. Moreover, no relationship was observed betwe en the pattern of monitoring latencies and the timing of the targets i n subjects' overt speech. Subjects are not, therefore, monitoring an i nternal phonetic representation of the carrier word. Experiment 2 used the production monitoring task to replicate the syllable monitoring e ffect observed in speech perception experiments. responses to targets were faster when they corresponded to the initial syllable of the carr ier word than when they did not. We conclude that subjects are monitor ing their internal generation of a syllabified phonological representa tion. Experiment 3 provides more detailed evidence concerning the time course of the generation of this representation by comparing monitori ng latencies to targets within, as well as between, syllables. Some am endments to current models of phonological encoding are suggested in l ight of these results. (C) 1995 Academic Press, Inc.