Language, Cognition and Neuroscience

ISSN: 2327-3798 (Print) 2327-3801 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/plcp21

Facilitation and interference of phoneme

repetition and phoneme similarity in speech
production

Elisa Monaco, Pauline Pellet Cheneval & Marina Laganaro

To cite this article: Elisa Monaco, Pauline Pellet Cheneval & Marina Laganaro (2017) Facilitation
and interference of phoneme repetition and phoneme similarity in speech production, Language,
Cognition and Neuroscience, 32:5, 650-660, DOI: 10.1080/23273798.2016.1257730

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2016.1257730

View supplementary material

Published online: 21 Nov 2016.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 78

View related articles

View Crossmark data

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=plcp21

Download by: [BCU/KUB Fribourg - University of Fribourg] Date: 19 May 2017, At: 03:27
LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE, 2017
VOL. 32, NO. 5, 650660
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23273798.2016.1257730

REGULAR ARTICLE

Facilitation and interference of phoneme repetition and phoneme similarity in

speech production
Elisa Monaco, Pauline Pellet Cheneval and Marina Laganaro
Faculty of Psychology and Educational Science, University of Geneva, Geneva, Switzerland

ABSTRACT ARTICLE HISTORY

Speakers know that it is hard to produce tongue-twister-like utterances involving repeated and Received 11 May 2016
similar phonemes (She sells socks in a small shoe shop). While utterances involving Accepted 25 October 2016
phonologically similar phonemes consistently give rise to speech errors, repeated phonemes
KEYWORDS
have been shown to interfere as well as to facilitate production. Here we try to shed light on this Speech errors; tongue-
paradox by investigating brain processes underlying planning utterances involving similar and twister; language production;
repeated phonemes (tongue-twister-like) and utterances with only repeated phonemes facilitation; interference
elicited with picture naming during electroencephalographic/event-related potentials (EEG/ERP)
recording. Tongue-twister-like utterances increased error rates while repeated onset phonemes
decreased reaction times. Both types of utterances modulated ERPs after 370 ms following
picture onset by shortening a period of stable electrophysiological pattern. Another microstate
was lengthened for tongue-twister-like utterances only, wiping out the timing difference of the
previous microstate. These results indicate priming of repeated phonemes and cost of encoding
similar phonemes, both phenomena co-occurring in tongue-twisters.

Introduction involving both similar word onset phonemes and

Every speaker has experienced the production of phono-
logical errors while trying to recite speech sequences
involving similar and repeated phonemes such as She
sells six socks in a small shoe shine shop. Besides the
funny tongue-twister experience, the observation that
error rate increases in the production of such sequences
questions the limits of our speech planning and pro-
duction system. It also provides a unique opportunity to
understand the mechanisms underlying speech planning.
Tongue-twister-like sequences have been widely used in
psycholinguistic research to study the processes involved
in encoding the form of the utterances to be produced. In
the different paradigms used to elicit speech errors par-
ticipants are asked to read aloud or to repeat speech
sequences involving both similar phonemes and
repeated phonemes. However, a paradox exists in the lit-
erature regarding the planning and production of
sequences with similar and repeated phonemes: while
phonologically similar phonemes consistently resulted
in increased production difficulty (Wilshire, 1999), the rep-
etition of identical phonemes in consecutive words has
been shown to facilitate production (Damian & Dumay,
2009). Here we try to shed light on this paradox by inves-
tigating errors and event-related potentials (ERPs) during
the production of tongue-twister-like utterances
repeated phonemes and comparing them to the pro-
duction of utterances involving repeated onset pho-
nemes. In addition, we get rid of reading and repetition
paradigms and elicit the production of tongue-twister-
like sequences with a picture naming task.
Error elicitation with similar and repeated
phonemes
Spontaneous and elicited speech errors (slips of the
tongue) have been analysed in (psycho)linguistic
research to draw inferences on the representations and
processes involved in speech production. Whereas the
initial systematic investigations of speech errors were
based on the observation of spontaneous errors
(Fromkin, 1973; Meringer & Mayer, 1896), Baars and
Motley (1974) were the first to try to elicit speech
errors in experimental settings. In their original paradigm
(SLIP, spoonerism of laboratory induced predisposition)
they asked the participants to silently read sequences
of word pairs. Every few trials a target word pair was pre-
sented with a signal asking the participants to produce
the words overtly. The word pairs preceding the target
pair had a fixed sequence of phonologically similar
word onset phonemes which was inversed in the

CONTACT Marina Laganaro marina.laganaro@unige.ch

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at 10.1080/23273798.2016.1257730.
2016 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group

target pair (e.g. the target pair bad goof preceded by
give book, go back and gap boot). In such cases taneous or experimentally induced slips of the tongue
subjects are likely to produce an onset exchange error
(gad boof, Baars, Motley, & MacKay, 1975). Sub-
sequently other paradigms have been developed to
elicit segmental errors. In the tongue-twister paradigm
multiple repetitions of tongue-twister-like sequences
are elicited (Shattuck-Hufnagel, 1992). Participants are
often asked to follow a rhythm imposed by a metronome
(Schwartz, Saffran, Bloch, & Dell, 1994) or encouraged to
repeat sequences as fast as possible (Sevald & Dell, 1994).
Wilshire (1999) carried out a detailed analysis of the con-
ditions inducing the production of errors in the tongue-
twister tasks, in which participants repeated sequences
of four words visually displayed on screen. Higher error
rates were observed when the four words in the sequences
involved two repeated onset phonemes which were
phonologically similar (e.g. dirt bus boot dose). Errors
increased from the second repetition of the word
sequences and were also observed when the four words
in the quadruplets were not recited sequentially but in
random order (Wilshire, 1999, Exp. 2). The influence of
the presence of repeated phonemes in error elicitation
has also been shown by Dell (1984) in a delayed pro-
duction task of two word sequences. Error rates were
higher when the sequences involved repeated phonemes
than when they only involved different phonemes (e.g.
mad back vs. mad bake) whether the repeated pho-
nemes were adjacent to the similar word onset phonemes
or not (e.g. boom comb vs. boom coat).
Hence, both phoneme repetition and presence of
similar onset phonemes seem to play a role in the pro-
duction of speech errors in tongue-twisters and similar
reciting tasks. Increased error rates while repeating the
same utterances involving repeated phonemes is inter-
preted as the consequence of re-activating the same
phonemes. This difficulty arises either because pho-
nemes are recalled from a previous selection/activation
which decayed in the meantime (Dell, 1988), or
because two units (e.g. syllables) containing the same
phoneme are activated via the shared phoneme and
compete for selection (Dell, 1984) or because a unit
is temporary inhibited after activation/selection to
prevent perseveration (Stemberger, 2009). On the
other hand, interference by phoneme similarity
suggests that phonologically similar phonemes
compete for activation/selection due to shared fea-
tures. This observation favours phonological encoding
models claiming that features are represented and
activated along with segmental information (Dell,
1986, 1988). If shared features become activated, mis-
selection of similar phonemes is more plausible than
errors on distant phonemes.
LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 651
It should be noted that in these frameworks spon-
have been considered phonemic (categorical) substi-
tutions. Slightly different interpretations are provided
by studies applying acoustic analyses to speech errors.
For instance, Frisch and Wright (2002) carried out acous-
tic analyses on /s/-/z/ errors produced in an experimental
tongue-twister task and reported both, intermediate
phonetic errors and phonemic errors. Hence, in addition
to the error mechanisms described above for categorical
substitutions, McMillan and Corley (2010) suggested that
a simultaneous activation of target and non-target pho-
nemes can lead either to articulatory variations (phonetic
transformations) or to whole phoneme substitution
errors. Note however that this interpretation holds for
sequences of competing similar phonemes, not for
sequences of repeated onset phonemes.
Facilitation with repeated phonemes
As summarised above, tongue-twister-like sequences
involve both, similar phonemes and repeated phonemes
and the two seem to contribute to errors. Whereas
feature similarity between subsequent word onset con-
sonants appears to be a key condition to elicit slips of
the tongue, producing sequences of words with
repeated phonemes has been shown to interfere with
(Stemberger, 2009; see also Breining, Nozari, & Rapp,
2015) but also to facilitate production (Meyer, 1992;
Roelofs, 1999). For instance, in a different vein and for
different goals than those pursued by tongue-twister
studies, Damian and Dumay (2009) showed that partici-
pants were faster to name pictures with adjectival
noun phrases when the adjective and the noun con-
tained repeated onset phonemes (e.g. blue bag). The
same effect was replicated when phonemes were
repeated at different word positions (e.g. green chain).
Of interest for our purpose here is also the observation
that phoneme repetition did not affect error rates in
any direction in the studies reported by Damian and
Dumay. In addition, facilitation was not observed when
the participants produced the sequence after a delay,
suggesting that facilitation was not due to articulation,
but likely to the repeated activation/selection of the
same phonemes. Fact is that the facilitation reported
when the two consecutive words involve repeated pho-
nemes seems at odds with the interpretation that
repeated phonemes contribute to errors in tongue-twis-
ters. However, one should take the comparison of results
from tongue-twister studies with those of facilitation
using repeated phonemes with caution, as both the
paradigms and the linguistic materials diverge. First,
whereas reading and repetition are used to elicit
652 E. MONACO ET AL.
production in tongue-twister tasks, the phoneme rep-
etition priming paradigms use picture naming tasks to
elicit utterance production. Second, the utterances
used in most tongue-twister studies are composed of
sequences of juxtaposed words, that is, of ungrammati-
cal utterances; this is not the case in the repeated pho-
nemes priming tasks, where the participants produce
adjectival noun phrases, that is, grammatical utterances.
Finally, whereas multiple repetitions of the same
sequences are elicited in the tongue-twister paradigms,
the utterance is not repeated (at least not immediately)
in picture naming paradigms.
There are thus core differences between the tongue-
twister paradigms and the repeated onset phoneme
priming paradigms which do not allow us to further
discuss the discordant results and interpretations on
planning and producing repeated phonemes relative
to similar phonemes. In the present study we tried to dis-
entangle facilitation from interference of repeated
phonemes by having the same subjects producing
tongue-twister-like adjectival noun phrases (involving
both similar phonemes and repeated phonemes) and
sequences involving repeated onset phonemes and
their respective control utterances in a picture naming
task. In addition to the behavioural analysis we take
advantage of ERP electrophysiological analyses and
track the time-course of the modulations related to
repeated and to similar phonemes. If encoding repeated
phonemes facilitates production, we should observe
reduced production latencies as in Damian and Dumay
(2009), which should reflect in ERP modulations in the
time window associated with phonological encoding.
On the other hand, tongue-twister-like sequences
should result in increased error rates and production
latencies. Regarding electrophysiological modulations
related to the production of tongue-twister-like
sequences, a very few ERP studies used the SLIP para-
digms to elicit production errors with written word
sequences. Acheson and Hagoort (2014) were interested
in the error-related negativity rather than in the planning
processes and therefore analysed the post-response
ERPs. To our knowledge only Mller, Jansma, Rodri-
guez-Fornells, and Mnte (2007) analysed the pre-
response ERPs in a SLIP task. The authors reported diver-
ging ERPs between erroneous and error-free trials, which
they interpreted as reflecting conflict during phonetic
planning. In our paradigm, if similar onset phonemes
and repeated phonemes both contribute to speech
errors, we should observe a similar ERP signature as
Mller et al. for tongue-twister-like and for repeated
onset phoneme utterances. Finally, if tongue-twister-
like sequences involve both facilitation due to repeated
phonemes and interference due to phonologically
similar phonemes, we should observe two distinct ERP
modulations, one being similar to the modulation in
the repeated phoneme task.
Method
Participants
Twenty-two undergraduate students from the University
of Geneva (six men) were recruited for this study. They
were all native French speakers, right-handed (as con-
firmed by the Edinburgh Handedness Scale, Oldfield,
1971), aged between 20 and 34 (mean: 24.5). They did
not report hearing or language disorders. The partici-
pants filled a written informed consent and were paid
for their participation.
Material
Tongue-twister task
Twenty-four nouns and their corresponding line drawings
were selected from two French databases (Alario &
Ferrand, 1999; Bonin, Peereman, Malardier, Mot, &
Chalard, 2003). The words were three to eight phoneme
long (one to three syllables), all with a consonant onset.
Each noun was associated with two out of six pre-
nominal adjectives (petit small-, grand big-, trois
three-, quatre four-, demi half-, vieux old-) to create
tongue-twister-like adjectival noun phrases with phonolo-
gically similar onset phonemes and the respective control
sequences. The six pre-nominal adjectives were chosen to
meet the condition of being easily represented in a
picture naming task and of creating a possible tongue-
twister-like sequence by manipulating the phoneme simi-
larity with the nouns. Accordingly, the original line-
drawing images (350 350 pixels) were modified with
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program, http://www.
gimp.org) to elicit adjectival noun phrases for each of
the six adjectives (see examples in the Appendix).
The 24 tongue-twister-like adjectival noun phrases
were built such that the noun onset and the adjective
onset differed on one phonological feature and at least
one phoneme was shared between the noun and the
adjective (e.g. la grande cravate /lagRdkRavat/ -the big
tie-). Every two tongue-twister-like sequences, two
control sequences were created by rotating the two
adjectives. In this way, a noun was used both in the
experimental condition and in the control condition
with a different adjective from the same set of six pre-
nominal adjectives and all adjectives were repeated an
equal amount of times in the experimental and the
control utterances. The matched control utterances did
not involve similar or identical phoneme onsets. An
example of quadruplet is given in Table 1(a).

Repeated onset phoneme task
Twenty-four additional nouns and their corresponding
line drawings were selected from the same databases.
The 24 items were matched with those used for
tongue-twisters on the following psycholinguistic vari-
ables: visual complexity of the picture, concept famili-
arity, image agreement, name agreement, lexical
frequency, age of acquisition, word length (as number
of phonemes and as number of syllables). Each noun
was associated with two out of six pre-nominal adjec-
tives (same adjectives as for tongue-twister sequences)
such that the noun and the adjective shared the same
onset consonant. For every two repeated phoneme
sequences, two control sequences were constructed by
rotating the adjectives in order to create adjective
noun sequences with different onsets (control condition,
see examples in Table 1(b)).
Five additional nouns were selected for the examples
and as filler items.
Procedure
The participants sat approximately 60 cm away from the
computer screen. Pictures were presented in constant
size of 9.26 9.26 cm (approximately 4.4 of visual angle)
on a grey screen. The stimuli from the tongue-twister
task and the repeated phoneme task were mixed up to
increase variation and presented twice in 2 blocks of 96
pseudo-randomised stimuli. Four different orders were
used and counterbalanced across participants.
Before the experiment, participants were familiarised
with each original line-drawing and with the modified
pictures eliciting the adjectival noun phrases. At first
each original drawing appeared on the screen with the
expected noun. The stimuli appeared in a random
order and the participants could proceed at their pace
by pressing a key after having named the picture accord-
ing to the label provided. Then two object pictures (not
belonging to the experimental set) appeared combined
with each of the six possible modifications to elicit
the six adjectivenoun combinations. Pictures were pre-
sented with the expected adjectival noun phrases and
the participants were asked to read them aloud. During
the second familiarisation phase, pictures were
Table 1. Example of stimuli in the tongue-twister (a) and
repeated onset phoneme (b) tasks.
(a) Tongue-twister task (b) Repeated phonemes
Experimental Control Experimental
La grande cravate La demie cravate Le vieux vlo
(the big tie) (the half tie) (the old bike)
La demie ttine La grande ttine Les trois tambours
(the half dummy) (the big dummy) (the three drums)
LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 653
presented without the written utterance and participants
were asked to name the pictures with the expected
adjectival noun phrase with an increasingly pressing
timing. This procedure guaranteed that each participant
knew and used the expected adjectives and nouns for
each pictures during the experiment. An experimenter
ensured that each subject performed the task as
intended before the actual experiment was run.
During the experimental phase, each stimulus was
presented on the screen for 1500 ms, preceded by a
cross in the middle of the screen lasting 500 ms and a
blank screen of 200 ms. Inter-stimuli interval (ISI) lasted
1000 ms. Participants were instructed to respond (to
name each picture with the adjectival noun phrase) as
fast and accurately as possible. Each block of 96 stimuli
started with 3 filler trials and a short break was taken
between the 2 blocks. E-prime (Psychology Software
Tools, Inc., Pittsburgh, PA, USA; http://www.pstnet.com/
eprime) was used for stimulus presentation and timing
of stimuli.
Analysis of behavioural data
Every produced utterance was digitised and the Check-
Vocal software (Protopapas, 2007) was used to manually
extract production latencies (response times or RTs, i.e.
the time separating the onset of the picture and the
vocal onset) based on the acoustic waveforms. Every pro-
duction which did not correspond to the expected
correct sequence was considered as error. The following
error categories were identified: lexical errors (e.g. other
nouns or adjectives than expected), segmental errors
(e.g. /lakRdkRavat/ for /lagRdkRavat/, or /letRwabiRb/
for /letRwabibR/) and other errors (e.g. lack of answer,
determiner omission or gender error, interrupted or
incomplete answer, laughter, guttural sounds, dysfluen-
cies). Production errors were transcribed and coded by
the first author and cross-checked by the second
author. In case of disagreement between the two
judges, a consensus was found with a third rater.
EEG acquisition and pre-processing
A high density continuous electroencephalographic (EEG)
(128 channels covering the entire scalp) was acquired at
512 Hz (filters: DC to 104 Hz, 3 dB/octave slope) using
the ActiveTwo Biosemi system (Biosemi V.O.F. Amsterdam,
Netherlands, http://www.biosemi.com). The common
mode sense (CMS; active electrode) driven right leg
(CMS-DRL) was the online reference. Afterwards, EEG
Control
epochs with amplitudes exceeding 100 V and contain-
Les trois vlos
(the three bikes ing eye blinks or other noise were rejected before further
Le vieux tambour analyses and averaging, using the CarTool software
(the old drum)
(Brunet, Murray, & Michel, 2011). Band-pass filters
654 E. MONACO ET AL.
between 0.2 and 30 Hz and the notch filter at 50 Hz were
applied and stimulus-aligned epochs and response-
aligned epochs corresponding to correct productions or
to production classified as segmental errors were
extracted. Stimulus-aligned epochs covered the time
period from picture onset to 500 ms (forward direction);
response-aligned epochs were locked 100 ms before the
vocal onset of each trial and covered from 300 to
100 ms before the onset of the response acoustic
signal (backward direction). Only trials for which both
stimulus-aligned and response-aligned ERPs were artefact
free were retained, then averaged separately per partici-
pant, task (tongue-twister-like and repeated onset pho-
nemes) and per condition (experimental and matched
control utterances). A minimum of 30 epochs were aver-
aged per participant and condition (mean = 38.2 epochs,
SD = 4.1). Bad channels were interpolated with a 3D
spline interpolation method (Perrin, Pernier, Bertnard,
Giard, & Echallier, 1987). For the spatio-temporal analysis
the overlapping signal between stimulus-locked and
response-locked ERP according to participants mean pro-
duction latencies in each condition was removed (see
details in the next section).
ERP analyses
In order to identify time periods in which amplitude
differences were present between the tongue-twister-
like condition and its control condition, and between
the phoneme repetition condition and its control con-
dition, a standard waveform analysis was performed on
the averaged ERPs of the participants. At each electrode
and for each time point, the amplitudes of the evoked
potentials were compared across conditions with a para-
metric repeated measures ANOVA using STEN (Statistical
Toolbox for Electrical Neuroimaging1). This analysis was
performed on the stimulus-aligned time periods and
on the response-aligned time periods independently.
The experimental conditions and their corresponding
control sequences for the tongue-twister-like and the
repeated phoneme utterances were analysed separately
and a correction of the alpha criterion to 0.025 was
applied in addition to a spatial criterion of five neigh-
bouring electrodes displaying ERP differences and a tem-
poral criterion of five consecutive time frames (10 ms).
If any difference on amplitudes is indeed to be found
across conditions, the waveform amplitude analysis does
not indicate per se if this difference would be due to
simple modulations in amplitudes, to different under-
lying brain functional states or to shifts of the ERP com-
ponents across conditions (Michel & Murray, 2012). To
gain additional information on the underlying electro-
physiological differences, a topographic analysis was
run. The aim of this analysis is to identify periods of
stable global electric fields, likely corresponding to par-
ticular periods in mental information processing (Chan-
geux & Michel, 2004; Koukkou & Lehmann, 1987;
Lehmann, Strik, Henggeler, Koenig, & Koukkou, 1998)
and to compare them across tasks. The advantages of
tracking global topographic configurations are related
to their reference-independence and to their direct link
to changes in the configuration of the intracranial
sources (Michel, Koenig, Brandeis, & Gianotti, 2009).
Thus, the analyses of global electrophysiological patterns
provide insights into how tasks differ in terms of likely
underlying neurophysiological mechanisms (Michel &
Murray, 2012; Murray, Brunet, & Michel, 2008), in addition
to the temporal information about ERP differences.
At first, a non-parametric randomisation test to the
global dissimilarity between two electric fields was
carried out. This analysis, called TANOVA was carried
out to identify time point by time point periods of sig-
nificant topographic differences between conditions
using the CarTool software (Brunet et al., 2011). The
global dissimilarity is a quantification of topographic
differences between two electric fields independent of
their strength ranging from 0 to 2 (Lehmann & Skran-
dies, 1980, see an example of its computation in
Murray et al., 2008). The permutation of the data is
accomplished by re-assigning randomly the topo-
graphic maps of single subjects to the different con-
ditions. The global dissimilarity of these random
group-averaged ERPs is compared time point by time
point with the values of topographic dissimilarity of
the actual tasks. A time period criterion of 10 ms of con-
secutive significant differences was applied.
Subsequently, a spatio-temporal segmentation was
performed on the participants grand-averaged ERPs
per task and condition to determine topographic differ-
ences across conditions and statistically validate them
in the responses of single participants. In order to deter-
mine the most dominant electric field configurations at
the scalp (topographic ERP maps), we used a modified
hierarchical clustering algorithm (Murray et al., 2008),
the agglomerative hierarchical clustering and a combi-
nation of a cross-validation and the KrzanovskiLai cri-
terion (see Murray et al., 2008) to select the optimal
number of ERP topographic maps that best explain the
group-averaged data across conditions. Statistical
smoothing was applied to remove temporally isolated
topographic maps with low explanatory power. The
same time criterion used for the ERP waveform analyses
was adopted (minimum duration of 10 ms). The pattern
of topographic map templates observed in the group-
averaged data was statistically tested by comparing
each of these map templates with the moment-by-
moment scalp topography of individual ERPs in each

Table 2. Mean production latencies (RTs) and proportion of
errors in the experimental and control conditions for the
tongue-twister and the repeated phoneme tasks.
Tongue-twister Repeated phonemes
Experimental Control Experimental
RTs (SD) in ms 742 (83) 747 (69) 732 (72)
Overall errors 11.0% 10.7% 7.4%
Segmental errors 2.3% 0.4% 0.9%
condition. The aim of this procedure (called fitting) was
to establish how well a topographic template map
explains single participant responses in each condition.
For this analysis, stimulus and response-aligned ERPs
were combined on the basis of each participants mean
production latency in each condition, by removing the
overlapping signal from the response-aligned ERPs.
This procedure was designed to obtain ERPs covering
the exact time window of encoding, from picture onset
to 100 ms before the initiation of articulation (Laganaro,
2014) for each participant and condition. Each data
sampling point in each condition was labelled according
to the template map with which it best correlated
spatially, yielding a measure of map presence in each
individual data, its duration (number of time frames)
and the global explained variance (GEV). These measures
are then used to statistically test topographic differences
across experimental conditions.
Results
Four participants were excluded from the analyses due
to high amounts of lexical errors, and/or to lack of suffi-
cient uncontaminated ERP epochs. The following ana-
lyses were performed on 18 participants.
Behavioural results
For latency and ERP analyses, RTs beyond three standard
deviations with respect to the average of the subject
across all the utterances (1.6% of the data) and errors
(9.5% of the data) were excluded from the analyses.
The average naming latency and mean error rate per
task and condition are displayed in Table 2. Mixed
effects models were computed separately on each task
on RTs and on errors (generalised mixed effect model)
with experimental conditions as fixed effect and by
subject and by-item adjustments to the intercept for
the random structure (conducted with the statistical soft-
ware R, R Development Core Team, 2007, version 3.2.4.,
and the packages lme4 and lmerTest, Bates, Maechler,
Bolker, & Walker, 2014). No significant differences were
observed on RTs between the tongue-twister and the
control conditions (t(1402) = 1.21, p = .23), but RTs
were significantly shorter in the repeated onset
LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 655
phoneme experimental as compared to the control
sequences (t(1453) = 2.07, p = .038).
In the error analysis there was no significant difference
across conditions on overall error rates (tongue-twisters: z
Control
= 1.51, p = .13; repeated phonemes: z = 1.38, p = .17),
747 (72)
8.8% but the rate of segmental errors was significantly larger
1.3% on the tongue-twister stimuli than on the control stimuli
(z = 3.06, p < .01), with no difference across conditions
for the repeated phonemes (z < 1).
ERP results
Waveform analyses
The comparison between waveforms in the tongue-
twister-like and the matched control utterances revealed
significant differences in amplitudes on a large cluster of
central electrodes in four time windows: between 20
and 40 ms, from 375 to 390 ms and from 410 to
430 ms after stimulus onset, and between 190 and
155 ms before articulation onset (see Figure 1(a), top).
Significant differences are also found on the global dis-
similarity (TANOVA) in the same time windows, with
the exception of the very first one.
Across repeated phoneme experimental and control
utterances significant amplitude differences were
observed in the time windows from 95 to 115 ms and
between 460 and 490 ms on a cluster of central-posterior
electrodes. A short time window of significant TANOVA
was observed only in the 100120 ms time window
(see Figure 1(b)).
Global topographic ERP pattern analysis (spatio-
temporal segmentation)
A spatio-temporal segmentation analysis was run on the
four grand-averaged ERPs corresponding to tongue-
twister and to repeated phoneme sequences and their
respective control sequences. The same sequence of
seven topographic maps was revealed for each con-
dition of the two tasks (see Figure 2), accounting for
the 98% of the explained variance. Based on the
results of the waveform analysis and of the spatio-tem-
poral segmentation, a fitting procedure was run from
310 ms until the end of the response-locked ERP
signals (100 ms before articulation onset) with map
templates E, F and G. The period of quasi-stable
global electrophysiological pattern at scalp labelled
map E was present in the ERPs of 16 out of 18 partici-
pants, and map F appeared in all participants ERPs,
whereas the last period (map G) was less consistent
across participants. The mean duration of each period
of topographic stability is displayed in Figure 2. A sig-
nificant interaction between map and condition was
observed for the tongue-twister task on duration and
656 E. MONACO ET AL.

Figure 1. (a) Time points of significant amplitude differences (at p < .025, p < .01, p < .001, on at least five consecutive time frames and
five adjacent electrodes) between the tongue-twister-like utterances and their matched control sequences on each electrode for stimu-
lus-aligned and response-aligned ERPs with display of the electrodes yielding the significant differences and results of the topographic
TANOVA analysis under each graph. An example of waveform for each condition is presented for Cz from 0 to 500 ms following picture
onset and from 300 to 100 ms before articulation. The highlighted time windows correspond to the significant differences on ampli-
tudes. (b) Time points of significant amplitude differences (at p < .025, p < .01, p < .001, on at least five consecutive time frames and five
adjacent electrodes) between the repeated onset phoneme sequences and their control sequences on each electrode as a function of
time on stimulus-locked and response-locked ERPs with display of the electrodes yielding the significant differences and results of the
topographic TANOVA analysis under each graph. An example of waveforms for each condition is presented for Oz. The highlighted time
windows correspond to the significant differences on amplitudes.

GEV (duration: F(1, 17) = 8.71, p < .01; GEV: F(1,17) = 8.82,
p < .01). The period of stability corresponding to map E
was less present (had shorter duration and lower GEV)
in the experimental than in the control sequences (dur-
ation: t(17) = 2.9, p < .01; GEV: t(17) = 3.07, p < .01).
The difference across conditions was in the opposite
direction for duration of map F which was more
present in the tongue-twister sequences relative to
their control sequences (duration: t(17) = 2.14, p = .047;
GEV: t(17) = 1.5, p = .15). For the repeated phoneme
task the interaction between map and condition was
significant on GEV only (duration: F(1, 17) = 3.15, p
= .09; GEV: F(1, 17) = 8.82, p < .01). The period of topo-
graphic stability starting around 270 ms after picture
onset (map E in Figure 2) was more present in the
control sequences than in the repeated phoneme
sequences (duration: t(17) = 2.45, p = .025; GEV: t(17)
= 1.69, p = .1), while no significant difference appeared
on map F across experimental and control sequences
(duration: t(17) = 1.14, p = .27; GEV: t(17) = 1.62, p = .12).
Discussion
The experimental manipulation of tongue-twister-like
adjectival noun phrases in a picture naming task actually
elicited a higher rate of segmental errors relative to the
control utterances, without differences in production
latencies. On the other hand, utterances with repeated
onset phonemes were produced 15 ms faster than
their matched control sequences but did not elicit
additional errors. In both tasks the experimental manipu-
lation modulated waveform amplitudes and duration of
periods of topographic stability in late time windows,
after 375 ms post picture onset. Crucially, the period of
 LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 657

Figure 2. Stimulus and response-aligned grand-average ERPs for tongue-twister experimental and control conditions (a) and for
repeated phoneme experimental and control conditions (b) covering the average time period from picture onset to 100 ms before
the vocal response and temporal distribution of the periods of topographic stability presented with different colours and labelled
with the corresponding map templates. Vertical lines are presented every 100 ms. Scalp distribution of the electrophysiological
signal is displayed on a colour scale from dark blue (negative values) to magenta (positive values). On the right: the mean duration
in ms of the periods of topographic stability E, F and G from the fitting procedure in the individual participants.

stable electrophysiological pattern starting around
270 ms after picture onset (map E in Figure 2) lasted
shorter for both, tongue-twister and repeated phonemes
relative to their control utterances, whereas the following
period (map F) was lengthened for tongue-twisters
only. In the following we will first discuss interference
and facilitation separately before attempting an inte-
gration of the two phenomena.
Tongue-twister interference
A similar global error rate was observed on tongue-
twister-like utterances and on their respective control
utterances, indicating that the experiment did not
create a general interfering condition in tongue-
twister-like adjectival noun phrases. Only segmental
errors were more frequent on the tongue-twister-like
utterances than on their corresponding control utter-
ances. The rate of segmental errors (2.3%) was neverthe-
less lower than in the standard SLIP or tongue-twister
paradigms. This is likely due to different eliciting tasks
(picture naming vs. reading or repetition), different utter-
ances (adjectival noun phrases vs. ungrammatical
sequences in the SLIP paradigms) and different pro-
duction conditions (iterations of the same utterance at
high production speed in the SLIP and in previous
tongue-twister tasks). Thus, adjectival noun phrases con-
taining both similar onsets and at least one repeated
658 E. MONACO ET AL.
phoneme elicited with a picture naming task increase
segmental errors but to a lesser extent than the standard
SLIP tasks.
Despite increased error rates, the similar response
latencies between tongue-twister-like utterances and
control utterances indicate that overall the participants
did not take more time to plan the tongue-twisters.
However, if based on the behavioural results one
would claim that the planning time is similar for
tongue-twister-like and control sequences, a different
interpretation can be made based on the ERP spatio-
temporal results, where the experimental manipulation
resulted in both lengthening and shortening of two con-
secutive periods of stable topographic patterns. This
period of stable global electrophysiological pattern E
started around 270280 ms in both conditions and
lasted longer in the control than in the experimental con-
dition, causing a shift between maps E and F around by Damian and Dumays (2007, 2009). Planning two con-
400 ms, that is, in the time window of different waveform
amplitudes between experimental and control utter-
ances. The subsequent microstate (map F) displayed
the opposite pattern, longer duration for the tongue-
twister-like condition than for the control utterances.
These two microstates had different duration across con-
ditions, but in opposite directions, which seems to equal
out the overall processing time across conditions. These
results thus seem to indicate that the tongue-twister
manipulation speeds up the brain processes engaged
between 270 and 400 ms, but it lengthens the follow-
ing processing. The latter likely reflects increased plan-
ning cost due to conflict between similar and/or
repeated phonemes and is consistent with Mller
et al.s (2007) results and with usual interpretations of
the SLIP effect. Mller et al. reported a frontocentral
negativity from 350 ms after stimulus onset when the
word pairs elicited speech errors. The authors interpreted
their results as a conflict during phonetic encoding.
Whereas the Mller et al. results refer to the time-
course in a word pair reading task, the time period of
map F in the present study (after 400 ms) has been
associated with word form encoding and internal moni-
toring in previous estimates of the time-course in picture
naming tasks (Indefrey, 2011; see also Laganaro, Python,
& Toepel, 2013). There are at least two plausible expla-
nations for the observed effect on duration of map F.
The first interpretation is related to the timing of phono-
logical-phonetic encoding, which might be lengthened
in case of similar phonemes either because of a conflict
between phonemes sharing common features or
because non-target phonemes have to be inhibited. An
alternative interpretation for a longer lasting period of
topographic stability in this late time window can be
associated with internal monitoring. The similarity of
the onset phonemes to be encoded might not slow
down the encoding process per se, but it might require
additional monitoring time to ensure that the production
is error-free. The two interpretations are not exclusive,
and we will not be able to disentangle them with the
present data. On the other hand, the same interpretation
cannot be extended to the results on map E, as a similar
pattern was observed for the phoneme repetition task. A
different interpretation has to be searched for the shorter
period of topographic stability between 270 and 400 ms
which holds for both tasks. These two parallel results will
be discussed in the final section.
Facilitation by phoneme repetition
The repeated onset phonemes decreased production
latencies, thus replicating previous behavioural results
secutive words starting with the same phoneme is
speeded up possibly because phoneme repetition
primes the selection/activation during phonological
encoding (Meyer, 1992; Roelofs, 1999). Repeated pho-
nemes did not increase error rates in the current exper-
iment, which seems to contradict previous results on
increased error rates for sequences involving repeated
phonemes (Dell, 1984, exp. 2). It should be noted that
in the present study repeated phonemes were all on
word onset positions and this is also the word position
in which errors mostly occurred in previous studies.
However, whereas previous studies involved mainly
monosyllabic words, our French stimuli were composed
of plurisyllabic nouns, thus enabling errors on other
word positions.
Besides amplitude differences on a small cluster of
channels in the P100 time window, possibly due to
more complex pictures in one condition, amplitudes dif-
fered between experimental and control utterances on a
large cluster of centro-posterior-right channels from 460
to 500 ms after picture onset. This time window corre-
sponds to the end of the quasi-stable topographic
pattern E which was shorter in the repeated
phoneme adjectival noun phrases relative to the corre-
sponding control utterances.2 The result on the duration
of periods of stable electrophysiological pattern closely
matches the shorter RTs in the experimental condition.
As reminded above, the time period corresponding to
map E has been associated with word form encoding
in picture naming (Indefrey, 2011). Here it suggests
that encoding the same word onset phoneme twice
speeds up phonological encoding. The time window of
ERP modulation by repeated phonemes in the present
study is later than the one observed for repeated onset
phonemes in picture naming by Yu, Mo, and Mo

(2014). The authors reported diverging ERP waveforms
between repeated onset phonemes and the control con-
dition from about 180 to 300 ms. However, the linguistic
stimuli are different from ours. In the study by Yu et al.
(2014), two nouns corresponding to two different pic-
tures were named consequently, while in the present
study phoneme repetition is manipulated within the
adjectival noun phrase elicited from a single picture.
Although Yu, Mo and Mo also interpreted their early
effect as reflecting phonological encoding, it is possible
that the underlying mechanisms of onset phonemes
priming and the overall dynamic of speech planning is
different for two consecutive object names relative to
adjectival noun phrases. More crucially for the purpose
of the present research, similar late waveform modu-
lations after 400 ms on central-posterior electrodes and
similar shortening of the same period of topographic
stability were observed in the tongue-twister and in
the phoneme repetition condition, although the first
manipulation interfered with the correct production
and the second manipulation facilitated production by
reducing naming latencies.
Linking facilitation and interference
The crucial issue we wished to address is related to the
usual presence of both similar and repeated phonemes
in tongue-twister sequences. The similarity in the
results on the shortening of a shared period of stable
topographic configuration in both tasks allows us to
propose an interpretation of the processes involved
in the production of tongue-twister sequences. The
period corresponding to map E which is shortened in
both, repeated phonemes and tongue-twister-like
sequences, likely reflects phoneme priming across adjec-
tive and noun during phonological encoding, whichever
the position of the repeated phonemes.
In the tongue-twister task the priming is unlikely due
to shared features between phoneme onsets as similar
onset phonemes do not seem to be a valid priming con-
dition in word production (see Roelofs, 1999). The effect
observed on map E being similar between tongue-
twister and repeated onset phoneme sequences, it is
likely due to repeated phonemes, although in other pos-
itions than word onset in the tongue-twister-like utter-
ances. Behavioural facilitation by repeated phonemes
in other word positions in adjectival noun phrases has
been reported previously (see Exps. 4 and 5 in Damian
& Dumay, 2009). Hence, the ERP results indicate some
amount of facilitation on processing speed in the
tongue-twister utterances, which cannot be observed
in the behavioural results, where only interference in
terms of errors is observed. However, we also observed
LANGUAGE, COGNITION AND NEUROSCIENCE 659
that RTs are not increased in the tongue-twister con-
dition. This seems to be due to a compensation of facili-
tation by the cost of conflict due to similar onset
phonemes as identified in the longer duration for the
tongue-twister-like condition of the period of electro-
physiological stability labelled map F. Fact is that the
present results provide evidence that interference is
not the only mechanism at play in the production of
tongue-twister-like sequences, which is rather a situation
in which the speaker is submitted to both, facilitation
and interference. It is possible that both contribute to
speech errors, priming of identical phonemes increasing
the conflict with similar sounding phonemes.
Notes
1. STEN toolbox: http://www.unil.ch/fenl/home/menuguid/
infrastructure/software--analysis-tools.html.
2. Notice that the ERP amplitude modulation by the exper-
imental conditions at the end of the stimulus-aligned
ERP signal appears later than in the tongue twister like
task. In both cases the divergences in amplitudes in
this late time window likely reflect the delay in the tran-
sitions from maps E to F across conditions. This delay
seems to happen earlier for the tongue-twister like task
than for the phoneme repetition task. We statistically
compared the onset of map F in the experimental con-
dition across tasks and it actually happens to be earlier
for tongue-twister like than for repeated phonemes
(t(17) = 2.01, p = .05).
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This research was supported by Swiss National Science Foun-
dation [grant number 105319_146113].
References
Acheson, D. J., & Hagoort, P. (2014). Twisting tongues to test for
conflict-monitoring in speech production. Frontiers in Human
Neuroscience, 8, 4671. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2014.00206
Alario, F.-X., & Ferrand, L. (1999). A set of 400 pictures standar-
dized for French: Norms for name agreement, image agree-
ment, familiarity, visual complexity, image variability, and
age of acquisition. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments,
& Computers, 31(3), 531552. doi:10.3758/BF03200732
Baars, B. J., & Motley, M. T. (1974). Spoonerisms: Experimental eli-
citation of human speech errors. American Psychological
Association, Journal Supplement Abstract Service.
Baars, B. J., Motley, M. T., & MacKay, D. G. (1975). Output editing
for lexical status in artificially elicited slips of the tongue.
Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 14(4), 382
391. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(75)80017-X
660 E. MONACO ET AL.
Bates, D., Maechler, M., Bolker, B., & Walker, S. (2014). lme4:
Linear mixed-effects models using Eigen and S4. Retrieved
from http://CRAN.R-project.org/package=lme4
Bonin, P., Peereman, R., Malardier, N., Mot, A., & Chalard, M.
(2003). A new set of 299 pictures for psycholinguistic
studies: French norms for name agreement, image agree-
ment, conceptual familiarity, visual complexity, image varia-
bility, age of acquisition, and naming latencies. Behavior
Research Methods, Instruments, & Computers, 35(1),
158167. doi:10.3758/BF03195507
Breining, B., Nozari, N., & Rapp, B. (2015). Does segmental
overlap help or hurt? Evidence from blocked cyclic naming
in spoken and written production. Psychonomic Bulletin &
Review, 23(2), 500506. doi:10.3758/s13423-015-0900-x
Brunet, D., Murray, M. M., & Michel, C. M. (2011). Spatiotemporal
analysis of multichannel EEG: CARTOOL. Computational
Intelligence and Neuroscience, 2011, 2:12:15. doi:10.1155/
2011/813870
Changeux, J.-P., & Michel, C. M. (2004). Mechanisms of neural
integration at the brain scale level: The neuronal workspace
and microstate models. In S. Grillner & A. M. Grabyel (Eds.),
Microcircuits: The Interface between neurons and global
brain function (pp. 347370). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Damian, M. F., & Dumay, N. (2007). Time pressure and phonolo-
gical advance planning in spoken production. Journal of
Memory and Language, 57(2), 195209. doi:10.1016/j.jml.
2006.11.001
Damian, M. F., & Dumay, N. (2009). Exploring phonological
encoding through repeated segments. Language and
Cognitive Processes, 24(5), 685712. doi:10.1080/
01690960802351260
Dell, G. S. (1984). Representation of serial order in speech:
Evidence from the repeated phoneme effect in speech
errors. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning,
Memory and Cognition, 10, 222233.
Dell, G. S. (1986). A spreading-activation theory of retrieval in
sentence production. Psychological Review, 93(3), 283321.
doi:10.1037/0033-295X.93.3.283
Dell, G. S. (1988). The retrieval of phonological forms in pro-
duction: Tests of predictions from a connectionist model.
Journal of Memory and Language, 27(2), 124142. doi:10.
1016/0749-596X(88)90070-8
Frisch, S. A., & Wright, R. (2002). The phonetics of phonological
speech errors: An acoustic analysis of slips of the tongue.
Journal of Phonetics, 30(2), 139162. doi:10.1006/jpho.2002.
0176
Fromkin, V. (1973). Slips of the tongue. San Francisco: WH
Freeman.
Indefrey, P. (2011). The spatial and temporal signatures of word
production components: A critical update. Language
Sciences, 2, 255. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00255
Koukkou, M., & Lehmann, D. (1987). An information-processing
perspective of psychophysiological measurements. Journal
of Psychophysiology, 1(2), 109112.
Laganaro, M. (2014). ERP topographic analyses from concept to
articulation in word production studies. Language Sciences, 5,
493. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00493
Laganaro, M., Python, G., & Toepel, U. (2013). Dynamics of pho-
nologicalphonetic encoding in word production: Evidence
from diverging ERPs between stroke patients and controls.
Brain and Language, 126(2), 123132. doi:10.1016/j.bandl.
2013.03.004
Lehmann, D., & Skrandies, W. (1980). Reference-free
identification of components of checkerboard-evoked multi-
channel potential fields. Electroencephalography and Clinical
Neurophysiology, 48(6), 609621. doi:10.1016/0013-4694
(80)90419-8
Lehmann, D., Strik, W. K., Henggeler, B., Koenig, T., & Koukkou,
M. (1998). Brain electric microstates and momentary con-
scious mind states as building blocks of spontaneous think-
ing: I. Visual imagery and abstract thoughts. International
Journal of Psychophysiology, 29(1), 111.
McMillan, C. T., & Corley, M. (2010). Cascading influences on the
production of speech: Evidence from articulation. Cognition,
117(3), 243260. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.08.019
Meringer, R., & Mayer, K. (1896). Versprechen und Verlesen.
Stuttgart: Goschen.
Meyer, A. S. (1992). Investigation of phonological encoding
through speech error analyses: Achievements, limitations
and alternatives. Cognition, 42, 181211.
Michel, C. M., Koenig, T., Brandeis, D., & Gianotti, L. R. R. (2009).
Electrical neuroimaging. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Michel, C. M., & Murray, M. M. (2012). Towards the utilization of
EEG as a brain imaging tool. NeuroImage, 61(2), 371385.
doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2011.12.039
Mller, J., Jansma, B. M., Rodriguez-Fornells, A., & Mnte, T. F.
(2007). What the brain does before the tongue slips.
Cerebral Cortex, 17(5), 11731178. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhl028
Murray, M. M., Brunet, D., & Michel, C. M. (2008). Topographic
ERP analyses: A step-by-step tutorial review. Brain
Topography, 20(4), 249264. doi:10.1007/s10548-008-0054-5
Oldfield, R. C. (1971). The assessment and analysis of handed-
ness: The Edinburgh inventory. Neuropsychologia, 9(1), 97
113. doi:10.1016/0028-3932(71)90067-4
Perrin, F., Pernier, J., Bertnard, O., Giard, M. H., & Echallier, J. F.
(1987). Mapping of scalp potentials by surface spline interp-
olation. Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology,
66(1), 7581. doi:10.1016/0013-4694(87)90141-6
Protopapas, A. (2007). Check vocal: A program to facilitate
checking the accuracy and response time of vocal responses
from DMDX. Behavior Research Methods, 39(4), 859862.
doi:10.3758/BF03192979
Roelofs, A. (1999). Phonological segments and features as plan-
ning units in speech production. Language and Cognitive
Processes, 14(2), 173200. doi:10.1080/016909699386338
Schwartz, M. F., Saffran, E. M., Bloch, D. E., & Dell, G. S. (1994).
Disordered speech production in aphasic and normal speakers.
Brain and Language, 47(1), 5288. doi:10.1006/brln.1994.1042
Sevald, C. A., & Dell, G. S. (1994). The sequential cuing effect in
speech production. Cognition, 53(2), 91127. doi:10.1016/
0010-0277(94)90067-1
Shattuck-Hufnagel, S. (1992). The role of word structure in seg-
mental serial ordering. Cognition, 42(13), 213259. doi:10.
1016/0010-0277(92)90044-I
Stemberger, J. P. (2009). Preventing perseveration in language
production. Language and Cognitive Processes, 24(10), 1431
1470. doi:10.1080/01690960902836624
Wilshire, C. E. (1999). The Tongue Twister paradigm as a tech-
nique for studying phonological encoding. Language and
Speech, 42(1), 5782. doi:10.1177/00238309990420010301
Yu, M., Mo, C., & Mo, L. (2014). The role of phoneme in Mandarin
Chinese production: Evidence from ERPs. PLOS One, 9(9),
e106486. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0106486