Restricted access

Research article

First published online June 1, 2012

Request permissions

Self-Directed Speech Affects Visual Search Performance

Gary Lupyan [email protected] and Daniel SwingleyView all authors and affiliations

Volume 65, Issue 6

https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2011.647039

Abstract
References

Abstract

People often talk to themselves, yet very little is known about the functions of this self-directed speech. We explore effects of self-directed speech on visual processing by using a visual search task. According to the label feedback hypothesis (Lupyan, 2007a), verbal labels can change ongoing perceptual processing—for example, actually hearing “chair” compared to simply thinking about a chair can temporarily make the visual system a better “chair detector”. Participants searched for common objects, while being sometimes asked to speak the target's name aloud. Speaking facilitated search, particularly when there was a strong association between the name and the visual target. As the discrepancy between the name and the target increased, speaking began to impair performance. Together, these results speak to the power of words to modulate ongoing visual processing.

Get full access to this article

View all access and purchase options for this article.

References

Alexander R. Zhang W. Zelinsky G.J. (2010). Visual similarity effects in categorical search. Proceedings of the 32nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Ohlsson S.Catrambone R. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society 1222–1227.

Allopenna P. Magnuson J. Tanenhaus M. (1998). Tracking the time course of spoken word recognition using eye movements: Evidence for continuous mapping models. Journal of Memory and Language, 38, 4 419–439.

Altmann G.T. M. (2011). Language can mediate eye movement control within 100 milliseconds, regardless of whether there is anything to move the eyes to. Acta Psychologica, 137, 2 190–200.

Anderson S.E. Chiu E. Huette S. Spivey M.J. (2011). On the temporal dynamics of language-mediated vision and vision-mediated language. Acta Psychologica, 137, 2 181–189.

Andersson R. Ferreira F. Henderson J.M. (2011). I see what you're saying: The integration of complex speech and scenes during language comprehension. Acta Psychologica, 137, 2 208–216.

Baayen R.H. Davidson D.J. Bates D.M. (2008). Mixed-effects modeling with crossed random effects for subjects and items. Journal of Memory and Language, 59, 4 390–412.

Baddeley A.D. Chincotta D. Adlam A. (2001). Working memory and the control of action: Evidence from task switching. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 130, 4 641–657.

Bar M. Kassam K.S. Ghuman A.S. Boshyan J. Schmidt A.M. Dale A.M. et al. (2006). Top-down facilitation of visual recognition. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 2 449–454.

Berk L.E. Garvin R.A. (1984). Development of private speech among low-income Appalachian children. Developmental Psychology, 20, 2 271–286.

Berk L.E. Potts M.K. (1991). Development and functional-significance of private speech among attention-deficit hyperactivity disordered and normal boys. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 19, 3 357–377.

Carlson R.A. (1997). Experienced cognition 1, Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Castelhano M.S. Pollatsek A. Cave K.R. (2008). Typicality aids search for an unspecified target, but only in identification and not in attentional guidance. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 15, 4 795–801.

Clark A. (1997). Being there: Putting brain, body, and world together again, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Clark A. Karmiloff-Smith A. (1993). The cognizer's innards: A psychological and philosophical perspective on the development of thought. Mind & Language, 8, 4 487–519.

Cohen R. Kelter S. Woll G. (1980). Analytical competence and language impairment in aphasia. Brain and Language, 10, 2 331–347.

Dahan D. Tanenhaus M.K. (2005). Looking at the rope when looking for the snake: Conceptually mediated eye movements during spoken-word recognition. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 12, 3 453–459.

Davidoff J. Roberson D. (2004). Preserved thematic and impaired taxonomic categorisation: A case study. Language and Cognitive Processes, 19, 1 137–174.

Dennett, D. C. (1994). The role of language in intelligence. In J. Khalfa (Ed.), What is intelligence? The Darwin College Lectures, Cambridge.

Emerson M.J. Miyake A. (2003). The role of inner speech in task switching: A dual-task investigation. Journal of Memory and Language, 48, 1 148–168.

Enns J.T. Lleras A. (2008). What's next? New evidence for prediction in human vision. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 12, 9 327–333.

Gilbert A.L. Regier T. Kay P. Ivry R.B. (2006). Whorf hypothesis is supported in the right visual field but not the left. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 103, 2 489–494.

Gleitman H. Fridlund A.J. Reisberg D. (2004). Psychology 6, New York, NY: Norton & Company.

Gleitman L. Papafragou A. (2005). Language and thought. Cambridge handbook of thinking and reasoning, Holyoak K.Morrison B. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 633–661.

Goldstein K. (1948). Language and language disturbances, New York, NY: Grune & Stratton.

Gopnik A. (2001). Theories, language, and culture: Whorf without wincing. Language acquisition and conceptual development, Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 45–69.

Huettig F. Altmann G.T. M. (2007). Visual-shape competition during language-mediated attention is based on lexical input and not modulated by contextual appropriateness. Visual Cognition, 15, 8 985–1018.

Huettig F. Altmann G.T. M. (2010). Looking at anything that is green when hearing “frog”: How object surface colour and stored object colour knowledge influence language-mediated overt attention. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,.

Huettig F. Hartsuiker R.J. (2010). Listening to yourself is like listening to others: External, but not internal, verbal self-monitoring is based on speech perception. Language and Cognitive Processes, 25, 3 347.

James W. (1890). Principles of psychology, New York, NY: Holt 1,.

Jescheniak J.D. Schriefers H. Garrett M.F. Friederici A.D. (2002). Exploring the activation of semantic and phonological codes during speech planning with event-related brain potentials. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 14, 6 951–964.

Lamme V.A. F. Roelfsema P.R. (2000). The distinct modes of vision offered by feedforward and recurrent processing. Trends in Neurosciences, 23, 11 571–579.

Lupyan G. (2007a). The label feedback hypothesis: Linguistic influences on visual processing, (unpublished PhD thesis). Pittsburgh, PA: Carnegie Mellon University.

Lupyan G. (2007b). Reuniting categories, language, and perception. Twenty-Ninth Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Mcnamara D.S.Trafton J.G. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society 1247–1252.

Lupyan G. (2008). The conceptual grouping effect: Categories matter (and named categories matter more). Cognition, 108, 566–577.

Lupyan G. (2009). Extracommunicative functions of language: Verbal interference causes selective categorization impairments. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 16, 4 711–718.

Lupyan G. Spivey M.J. (2008). Perceptual processing is facilitated by ascribing meaning to novel stimuli. Current Biology, 18, 10 R410–R412.

Lupyan G. Spivey M.J. (2010a). Making the invisible visible: Auditory cues facilitate visual object detection. PLoS ONE, 5, 7 e11452.

Lupyan G. Spivey M.J. (2010b). Redundant spoken labels facilitate perception of multiple items. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 72, 8 2236–2253.

Lupyan, G., & Thompson-Schill, S. L. (2012). The evocative power of words: Activation of concepts by verbal and nonverbal means. Journal of Experimental Psychology-General, 141(1), 170–186.

Lupyan G. Thompson-Schill S.L. Swingley D. (2010). Conceptual penetration of visual processing. Psychological Science, 21, 5 682–691.

MacLeod C.M. Gopie N. Hourihan K.L. Neary K.R. Ozubko J.D. (2010). The production effect: Delineation of a phenomenon. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 36, 3 671–685.

Meyer A.S. Belke E. Telling A.L. Humphreys G.W. (2007). Early activation of object names in visual search. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 14, 4 710–716.

Miyake A. Emerson M.J. Padilla F. Ahn J.C. (2004). Inner speech as a retrieval aid for task goals: The effects of cue type and articulatory suppression in the random task cuing paradigm. Acta Psychologica, 115, 2–3 123–142.

MRC Psycholinguistic Database. Retrieved September 7, 2011, from http://www.psy.uwa.edu.au/mrcdatabase/uwa_mrc.htm.

Richardson D.C. Dale R. (2005). Looking to understand: The coupling between speakers' and listeners' eye movements and its relationship to discourse comprehension. Cognitive Science, 29, 1045–1060.

Riesenhuber M. Poggio T. (2000). Models of object recognition. Nature Neuroscience, 3, Suppl 1199–1204.

Risko E.F. Dixon M.J. Besner D. Ferber S. (2006). The ties that keep us bound: Top-down influences on the persistence of shape-from-motion. Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 2 475–483.

Roberson D. Davidoff J. (2000). The categorical perception of colors and facial expressions: The effect of verbal interference. Memory & Cognition, 28, 6 977–986.

Roberson D. Pak H. Hanley J.R. (2008). Categorical perception of colour in the left and right visual field is verbally mediated: Evidence from Korean. Cognition, 107, 2 752–762.

Rossion B. Pourtois G. (2004). Revisiting Snodgrass and Vanderwart's object pictorial set: The role of surface detail in basic-level object recognition. Perception, 33, 2 217–236.

Rumelhart D.E. McClelland J.L. (1982). An interactive activation model of context effects in letter perception: 2. The contextual enhancement effect and some tests and extensions of the model. Psychological Review, 89, 1 60–94.

Rumelhart D.E. Smolensky D. McClelland J.L. Hinton G.E. (1986). Parallel distributed processing models of schemata and sequential thought processes. Parallel distributed processing, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press II, 7–57.

Salverda A.P. Altmann G.T. M. (2011). Attentional capture of objects referred to by spoken language. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 37, 4 1122–1133.

Schmidt J. Zelinsky G.J. (2009). Search guidance is proportional to the categorical specificity of a target cue. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62, 10 1904–1914.

Smilek D. Dixon M.J. Merikle P.M. (2006). Revisiting the category effect: The influence of meaning and search strategy on the efficiency of visual search. Brain Research, 1080, 73–90.

Snedeker J. Gleitman L. (2004). Why is it hard to label our concepts?. Weaving a lexicon illustrated, Hall D.G.Waxman S.R. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press 257–294.

Soto, D., & Humphreys, G. W. (2007). Automatic guidance of visual attention from verbal working memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33(3), 730–737.

Spivey M.J. (2008). The continuity of mind, New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

The American National Corpus. Retrieved September 7, 2011, from http://www.anc.org/.

Vickery T.J. King L.-W. Jiang Y. (2005). Setting up the target template in visual search. Journal of Vision, 5, 1 81–92.

Vygotsky L. (1962). Thought and language, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Winawer J. Witthoft N. Frank M.C. Wu L. Wade A.R. Boroditsky L. (2007). Russian blues reveal effects of language on color discrimination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 104, 19 7780–7785.

Yang H. Zelinsky G.J. (2009). Visual search is guided to categorically-defined targets. Vision Research, 49, 16 2095–2103.

Yee E. Sedivy J.C. (2006). Eye movements to pictures reveal transient semantic activation during spoken word recognition. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, 32, 1 1–14.

Zelinsky G.J. Murphy G.L. (2000). Synchronizing visual and language processing: An effect of object name length on eye movements. Psychological Science, 11, 2 125–131.

|

You currently have no access to this content. Visit the access options page to authenticate.