Central processes in speech understanding

Abstract

Considering the psychological mechanisms of language as functioning psycholinguistic processes, the fundamental question - from the perspective of speech comprehension - is how these processes operate over time to transform a transient sensory input into a meaningful utterance. The research reported here suggests that these processes are organized to allow optimally effective use of the information carried by the speech signal, as it becomes available over time. This is achieved by means of a central set of mental operations, which constitute the sequence of obligatory and automatic processes that the listener runs through in interpreting a normal utterance in its natural context. These automatic processes function to bring the speech signal into contact with the word-recognition domain as rapidly as possible. At this point its analysis can begin to interact with the structural and interpretative context in which it is occurring, which not only facilitates the word-recognition process, but also means that the interpretation of the message can begin immediately.