The eyes are right when the mouth is wrong

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Psycholinguistics
• Speech Production

Background:

• Speakers often look at objects when naming them during speech.
• Self-corrected speech errors provide insight into word preparation processes.
• The relationship between eye movements and speech production is not fully understood.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the role of visual gaze in speech errors.
• To determine if speech errors are linked to insufficient visual information or preparation.
• To examine how eye movements differ before correct utterances versus self-corrected errors.

Main Methods:

• Analysis of a corpus of self-corrected speech errors.
• Recording and analysis of speaker eye movements (gaze) during visual scene description.
• Comparison of gaze duration to object referents before correct names versus erroneous utterances.

Main Results:

• Gaze duration to referents before speech errors was similar to that before correct names.
• Speakers gazed longer at referents after initiating an error than after initiating a correct name, likely for correction preparation.
• Speech errors were not consistently associated with less visual inspection of objects.

Conclusions:

• Speech errors do not appear to stem from insufficient visual preparation or object inspection.
• Eye movements, like gestures, may accurately reflect speaker intentions even during speech errors.
• Gaze patterns suggest that word preparation is not necessarily compromised during self-corrected speech errors.