Spoken word production: A theory of lexical access

A core operation in speech production is the preparation of words from a se mantic base. The theory of lexical access reviewed in this article covers a sequence of processing stages beginning with the speaker's focusing on a t arget concept and ending with the initiation of articulation. The initial s tages of preparation are concerned with lexical selection, which is zooming in on the appropriate lexical item in the mental lexicon. The following st ages concern form encoding, i.e., retrieving a word's morphemic phonologica l codes, syllabifying the word, and accessing the corresponding articulator y gestures. The theory is based on chronometric measurements of spoken word production, obtained, for instance, in picture-naming tasks. The theory is largely computationally implemented. It provides a handle on the analysis of multiword utterance production as well as a guide to the analysis and de sign of neuroimaging studies of spoken utterance production.