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Neural Dynamics of Phonological Encoding under Time Pressure
Poster Session E, Friday, October 2, 11:00 am - 1:00 pm, Wangari Maathai
This poster is part of the Sandbox Series.
Andrea Razzetto1, Marco Sala1, Marina Laganaro1; 1University of Geneva, Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science
Language production relies on cognitive resources that become more limited under time pressure, resulting in increased production errors. Hodgson & Lambon Ralph (2008) used the tempo naming paradigm to reduce the time available for lexical-semantic processing before articulation. Participants named pictures in time with an imposed rhythm, and results showed an increase in lexical-semantic errors in the speeded condition. Time pressure may not only affect lexical selection but also phonological encoding, given that previous studies suggest that phonological encoding is highly sensitive to increased cognitive demand. For example, Demierre et al. (2025) showed that syllabic interference, in a dual-task paradigm around 300 ms after picture onset, can increase phonological errors, suggesting that phonological encoding operates and can be interfered within tight temporal windows. Most of these studies used single-word production and it remains unknown if the same constraints apply to multi-word utterances, where several words must be planned and coordinated. Bürki & Laganaro (2014) used ERPs to demonstrate that phonological encoding is sequential and takes longer for multi-word than single-word utterances. However, the effects of time pressure on the cognitive and neurophysiological processes involved in multi-word production are poorly understood. In a preliminary behavioural study, we used the tempo naming paradigm with multi-word utterances. Participants were asked to produce adjectival noun phrases composed of a determiner, an adjective (“petit” -small- or “grand” -big-) and a noun. Before the task, participants were familiarized with the items to facilitate lexical access, allowing the experimental manipulation to more directly target phonological encoding stages (Llorens et al., 2014). The results showed that increasing time pressure led to significantly more phonological errors in the speeded condition (1100 ms) compared to baseline (2000 ms) and slow condition (1700 ms). These results thus confirm that phonological errors increase under speeded conditions in the tempo naming paradigm when producing utterances beyond single words. In the present study, we recorded electroencephalogram (EEG) signals while participants performed the multi-word tempo naming task to examine whether time pressure modulates ERP amplitudes during phonological encoding. This study will contribute to our understanding of the cognitive demands of phonological encoding under time pressure and its organization during multi-word production.
Topic Areas: Language Production,