Finding the right word usually feels effortless. Yet, speaking involves a series of remarkable cognitive steps: deciding what we want to say, choosing a word from all the words we know, retrieving its sounds, and checking whether the word that comes out is the one we intended. Most of the time, this process happens quickly and successfully. But when we have to speak under time pressure, the system can be pushed to its limits. Sometimes we say the wrong word, while other times we produce words that were not quite the ones we had in mind, but could still convey our message. What can these instances tell us about the cognitive mechanisms of
word production?
This dissertation investigates how speakers select and monitor their words by focusing on instances when word production does not go exactly as planned, e.g., when producing clear errors (saying "dog" when kitten was intended) or good-enough alternatives (saying "cat"). In the studies presented here, people were asked to name picture under time pressure, thus creating conditions in which these different responses were more likely to occur. By applying a combination of methods, this dissertation examines why errors and alternate names arise during word production, how the brain monitors these responses, and why some people may are better able to produce acceptable alternate names when their preferred word is not readily available, while other people produce more errors.
The reported studies show that words that deviate from what the speaker intended to say do not all arise in the same way. Some are produced as quickly as the intended word, while others show that a more effortful selection process took place before their production. Which word is finally produced is influenced by factors such as its accessibility in memory, its meaning, and the speaker's language experience. In addition, the brain monitors errors and alternate names differently over time.Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that word production is a rather flexible system and that studying lexical deviations can offer important insights into understanding how speakers select and monitor words.
Christina Papoutsi was born on November 26, 1992, in Thessaloniki, Greece. She obtained her Bachelor's degree in English Language and Literature from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. Following her studies, she worked as an English as a Foreign Language (EFL)
teacher in Greece, Spain, and the United Kingdom. In 2018, she moved to the Netherlands to pursue a Research Master's degree in Linguistics at Utrecht University, which she completed in March 2021. As part of her Master's training, she conducted her internship and thesis in the Language Function and Dysfunction group at the Donders Centre for Cognition. From December 2020 to July 2021, she also worked as a research assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. In February 2022, Christina started her PhD in the Psychology of Language Department at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.