| Literature DB >> 29662462 |
Liming Zhao1, Kevin B Paterson2, Xuejun Bai1.
Abstract
Research on language production has focused on the process of utterance planning and involved studying the synchronization between visual gaze and the production of sentences that refer to objects in the immediate visual environment. However, it remains unclear how the visual grouping of these objects might influence this process. To shed light on this issue, the present research examined the effects of the visual grouping of objects in a visual display on utterance planning in two experiments. Participants produced utterances of the form "The snail and the necklace are above/below/on the left/right side of the toothbrush" for objects containing these referents (e.g., a snail, a necklace and a toothbrush). These objects were grouped using classic Gestalt principles of color similarity (Experiment 1) and common region (Experiment 2) so that the induced perceptual grouping was congruent or incongruent with the required phrasal organization. The results showed that speech onset latencies were shorter in congruent than incongruent conditions. The findings therefore reveal that the congruency between the visual grouping of referents and the required phrasal organization can influence speech production. Such findings suggest that, when language is produced in a visual context, speakers make use of both visual and linguistic cues to plan utterances.Entities:
Keywords: Gestalt principles; language production; phrasal organization; syntactic planning; visual grouping
Year: 2018 PMID: 29662462 PMCID: PMC5890120 DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00307
Source DB: PubMed Journal: Front Psychol ISSN: 1664-1078
Figure 1Examples of (A) grouping principles, (B) the spatial configuration of objects in displays, and (C) examples of displays used in Experiments 1 and 2. (A) Illustration of grouping principles as similarity of color and common region (adapted from Palmer, 2002). (B) The four kinds of location relationships among the three pictures: above, below, right, and left (The arrows indicate the directions of description. Neither of the boxes, arrows, or lines was provided as part of the visual array. See the same presentation in Yang and Yang, 2008). (C) Example displays in the “above” location to be described with the sentence “the snail and the necklace are above the toothbrush” in the three grouping conditions of color similarity (Experiment 1) and common region (Experiment 2).
Mean latencies and percentage error rates for two experiments (participant means).
| Experiment 1 (color similarity) | N1 & N2 | 1,222 | 338 | 11.1 |
| N1 & N3 | 1,261 | 341 | 12.5 | |
| N2 & N3 | 1,266 | 358 | 11.3 | |
| Experiment 2 (common region) | N1 & N2 | 1,181 | 286 | 5.2 |
| N1 & N3 | 1,271 | 305 | 6.5 | |
| N2 & N3 | 1,316 | 311 | 5.4 | |
The model's estimate, standard error (std. error), degrees of freedom (df), t-value, and p-values of fixed effects for the correct RT in Experiments 1 and 2.
| Experiment 1 (color similarity) | (Intercept) | 1224.31 | 44.63 | 28.5 | 28.059 | <0.001 |
| N1 & N3 | 40.23 | 13.42 | 2598.2 | 2.998 | <0.01 | |
| N2 & N3 | 41.54 | 13.35 | 2598.3 | 3.111 | <0.01 | |
| Experiment 2 (common region) | (Intercept) | 1179.38 | 33.93 | 33.5 | 34.758 | <0.001 |
| N1 & N3 | 90.38 | 12.04 | 2778.7 | 7.509 | <0.001 | |
| N2 & N3 | 133.94 | 12.02 | 2779.8 | 11.147 | <0.001 |
| Item1 | 篮子 | /lan zi/ | Basket | Item2 | 萝卜 | /luo bo/ | Carrot |
| 电脑 | /dian nao/ | Computer | 太阳 | /tai yang/ | Sun | ||
| 风筝 | /feng zheng/ | Kite | 手铐 | /shou kao/ | Handcuffs | ||
| Item3 | 钢琴 | /gang qin/ | Piano | Item4 | 葡萄 | /pu tao/ | Grapes |
| 螃蟹 | /pang xie/ | Crab | 蜡烛 | /la zhu/ | Candle | ||
| 蛋糕 | /dan gao/ | Cake | 梯子 | /ti zi/ | Ladder | ||
| Item5 | 书包 | /shu bao/ | Pocketbook | Item6 | 蜗牛 | /wo niu/ | Snail |
| 烟斗 | /yan dou/ | Pipe | 项链 | /xiang lian/ | Necklace | ||
| 抽屉 | /chou ti/ | Drawer | 牙刷 | /ya shua/ | Toothbrush | ||
| Item7 | 拇指 | /mu zhi/ | Thumb | Item8 | 雪人 | /xue ren/ | Snowman |
| 喷泉 | /pen quan/ | Fountain | 大炮 | /da pao/ | Cannon | ||
| 松鼠 | /song shu/ | Squirrel | 叉子 | /cha zi/ | Fork | ||
| Item9 | 头盔 | /tou kui/ | Football helmet | Item10 | 镰刀 | /lian dao/ | Hook |
| 气球 | /qi qiu/ | Balloon | 冰箱 | /bing xiang/ | Refrigerator |