THE WEAVER MODEL OF WORD-FORM ENCODING IN SPEECH PRODUCTION

Lexical access in speaking consists of two major steps: lemma retrieva l and word-form encoding. In Roelofs (Roelofs, A. 1992a. Cognition 42, 107-142; Roelofs, A. 1993. Cognition 47, 59-87.), I described a model of lemma retrieval. The present paper extends this work by presenting a comprehensive model of the second access step, word-form encoding. The model is called WEAVER (Word-form Encoding by Activation and VERif ication). Unlike other models of word-form generation, WEAVER is able to provide accounts of response time data, particularly from the pictu re-word interference paradigm and the implicit priming paradigm. Its k ey features are (1) retrieval by spreading activation, (2) verificatio n of activated information by a production rule, (3) a rightward incre mental construction of phonological representations using a principle of active syllabification, syllables are constructed on the fly rather than stored with lexical items, (4) active competitive selection of s yllabic motor programs using a mathematical formalism that generates r esponse times and (5) the association of phonological speech errors wi th the selection of syllabic motor programs due to the failure of veri fication. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science B.V.