Is repairing speech errors an automatic or a controlled process? Insights from the relationship between error and repair probabilities in English and Spanish

Speakers can correct their speech errors, but the mechanisms behind repairs are still unclear. Some findings, such as the speed of repairs and speakers’ occasional unawareness of them, point to an automatic repair process. This paper reports a finding that challenges a purely automatic repair process. Specifically, we show that as error rate increases, so does the proportion of repairs. Twenty highly-proficient English-Spanish bilinguals described dynamic visual events in real time (e.g. “The blue bottle disappears behind the brown curtain”) in English and Spanish blocks. Both error rates and proportion of corrected errors were higher on (a) noun phrase (NP)2 vs. NP1, and (b) word1 (adjective in English and noun in Spanish) vs. word2 within the NP. These results show a consistent relationship between error and repair probabilities, disentangled from position, compatible with a model in which greater control is recruited in error-prone situations to enhance the effectiveness of repair.

言说者可对自身的言语错误进行修正，但言语修正（repair）背后的作用机制仍未明晰。部分研究发现——例如修正的速度、言说者偶尔会对自身错误浑然不觉——均指向自动修正过程（automatic repair process）。本研究报告了一项挑战纯自动修正过程的发现。具体而言，我们发现错误率提升时，言语修正的占比也会同步上升。20名英语-西班牙语熟练度极高的双语者，需实时描述动态视觉事件（例如“蓝色瓶子消失在棕色窗帘后方”），并分别在英语实验区块与西班牙语实验区块中完成任务。实验结果显示：其一，名词短语（NP）2的错误率与修正错误占比均高于NP1；其二，在名词短语内部，词位1（英语中为形容词、西班牙语中为名词）的错误率与修正错误占比均高于词位2。上述结果表明，错误发生概率与修正发生概率之间存在稳定关联，且该关联与位置因素相剥离；这一发现契合某一理论模型：即在易出错场景中，个体将调用更强的认知调控，以提升修正的有效性。