"Speech...hm...is difficult to to protest- uh process online"... We all produce disfluencies, which includes various phenomena such as pauses, repeated words, and self-corrections. According to some estimates, the rate of disfluencies in spontaneous speech is about 6 per 100 words; however it is still not well understood why speakers are not totally fluent. To reveal the underlying causes of disfluency, most approaches attempt to relate the pattern of disfluencies to difficulties at specific levels of language production. The current project will also investigate disfluency by manipulating different levels of production. In addition, we will bring together different accounts of disfluency by 1) capturing monitoring or stalling strategy using eye-tracking and 2) identifying the role of non-linguistic cognitive functions and individual differences through neuropsychological tests. This will open new avenues for the investigation and understanding of connected-speech production in normal and clinical populations, as well as new methods and perspectives in the use of eye-tracking for language production research.

More information here.

More information here.