It has been said that the fundamental issue in psychology is that of learning, change through experience. The program of research outlined here investigates learning in the domain of language production, specifically by studying how experience or practice with a particular linguistic sequence changes the process involved in saying the sequence. The program combines experiments in which speech errors (slips of the tongue) are generated under controlled conditions with computer simulation modelling, the goal being to provide a model for the data. One set of experiments will investigate how experience with a particular word or nonword affects the number of type of phonological slips that occur when it is said. A second set will focus on word sequences that form grammatical phrases and will attempt to characterize the changes that the language production system undergoes as the phrase is repeatedly uttered. The simulation modelling will be based on an existing model of language production. This model combines a connectionist or spreading- activiation architecture with aspects of lingusitic theory. The research will make scientific contributions to at least four areas that, heretofore, have often been studied separately. These include the psycholingusitics of language production, the organization of memory, the acquisition of skills, and connectionists models. An understanding of the issues in the role of experience in producing language should also facilitate the development of effective learning techniques in education, and therapies for disorders of language and speech.
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