Writing Before Speaking Modifies Speech Production

We investigated whether orthographic information influences speech production. We used a non-color-word version of the Stroop task in which participants had to ignore the presented words but name their ink color instead. In two experiments, we manipulated the phonological and orthographic relationships between the words and their ink color and the tasks' context by preactivating or not orthographic information. The relation between the first letter of the prime word and the first phoneme of the color name was phonological or orthographic and phonological or unrelated. In Experiment 1, only phonological information carried out by the prime word affected spoken naming; orthographic information did not help. In Experiment 2, speech production was influenced by orthographic information only after an initial writing task. This confirms that orthographic information can support speaking and that speech is sensitive to properties of the task's context, suggesting that orthographic information is coactivated online with phonological information.