Pupil-BLAH-metry: cognitive effort in speech planning reflected by pupil dilation.
In reading research, a longstanding question is whether any stages of lexical processing require central attention, and whether such potential demands are frequency-sensitive. In the present study, we examined the allocation of cognitive effort in lexical processing by examining pupil dilations and naming latencies in a modified delayed naming procedure. In this dual-task/change procedure, participants read words and waited for various delays before being signaled to issue a response. On most trials (80%), participants issued a standard naming response. On the remaining trials, they were cued to abandon the original speech plan, saying "blah" instead, thereby equating production across different words. Using feature-matched low- and high-frequency words, we observed the differences in pupil dilations as a function of word frequency. Indeed, frequency-sensitive cognitive demands were seen in word processing, even after naming responses were issued. The results suggest that word perception and/or speech planning requires the frequency-sensitive allocation of cognitive resources.
Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Box 871104, Tempe, AZ 85287-1104, USA.
Megan H
MH
Papesh
Stephen D
SD
Goldinger
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D001288:Attention; D001332:Automatism / Q000523:psychology; D003071:Cognition; D003463:Cues; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010700:Phonetics; D010897:Pitch Discrimination; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012025:Reflex, Pupillary; D012660:Semantics; D014705:Verbal Behavior; D055815:Young Adult