Abstract
Verbal self-monitoring is an essential function in the speech production processes. Under conditions of delayed auditory feedback (DAF), most normal speakers show disfluency. In this study, in order to reveal the characteristics of verbal self-monitoring mechanism, we analyzed speech errors under DAF. Adult nonstutterers were presented with Japanese sentences and asked to read aloud them under 200 ms DAF. Sentences were displayed with a cursor moving at a speed of one Japanese syllabary character per 200 ms corresponding to delay time. In the experiment, we use some types of loud noises and a bone conduction headphone to minimize the effect of original auditory and bone conductive feedbacks. We observed a negative correlation between stuttering probabilities and distances of adjacent syllables in auditory space. Based on this result, we discussed verbal self-monitoring mechanisms.
