Connected Speech

When neurotypical speakers produce utterances of more than one word, future words are active before articulation of the first word of an utterance (Schnur, Costa, & Caramazza, 2006; Schnur, 2011; Martin, Yan, & Schnur, 2014). This suggests that when we produce multiword utterances, selection of the current word is impacted by words produced in the past and planned in the future (Schnur, 2017). We provide tantalizing evidence from individuals in the acute phase of stroke (i.e., prior to the reorganization of function or strategy development) that the production of phrases and sentences depends both on an ability to reduce interference from competing words during selection (Schnur & Martin, 2019) and depends on working memory capacities critical for preparing multiple words in phrases and sentences prior to speech onset (Martin & Schnur, 2019). Further, we found that connected speech following acute stroke requires functionally and anatomically distinct lexically and syntactic driven processes (Ding, Martin, Hamilton & Schnur, 2020). This line of work has important clinical implications as it suggests that improving selection capacity and working memory after stroke could have a direct effect on patients’ ability to produce connected speech.

Schnur, T.T. (2017). Word selection deficits and multiword speech. Cognitive Neuropsychology, 34, 21-25. [Impact Factor 1.8] PubMed PMID: 28691606

Schnur, T. & Martin, R. (2019). Competitive lexical selection and multiword speech. Front. Hum. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Academy of Aphasia 55th Annual Meeting. DOI: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2017.223.00010 [Impact Factor 2.9]

Martin, R.M. & Schnur, T.T. (2019). Independent contributions of semantic and phonological working memory to spontaneous speech in acute stroke. Cortex, 112, 58 - 68. [Impact Factor 4.9] PubMed PMID: 30577977

Ding, J., Martin, R., Hamilton, A.C., & Schnur, T.T. (2020). Dissociation between frontal and temporal-parietal contributions to connected speech in acute stroke. Brain, 143, 862-876. [Impact Factor 14.2] PubMed PMID: 32155246