MUST-READ: Psychology Today: Slips of the Tongue

[highplainsdem]

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/articles/201203/slips-the-tongue

Slips of the tongue are almost inevitable. For every 1,000 words spoken, we make one or two errors. Considering that the average pace of speech is 150 words a minute, a slip is bound to occur about once every seven minutes of continuous talk. Each day, most of us make somewhere between 7 and 22 verbal slips.

-snip-

Recent research has focused on speech production, most notably how the brain translates thoughts into words. Cognitive scientist Gary Dell, a professor of linguistics and psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana, contends that slips of the tongue are indeed revealing—of a person's capacity for using language and its components.

In his view, concepts, words, and sounds are interconnected in three networks in the brain—the semantic, lexical, and phonological—and speech arises from their interaction. But every so often, the networks, which operate through a process he calls "spreading activation," trip over each other. The result is a slip of the tongue. And that, he believes, is a good thing. A language-production system that is error-prone allows for the "novel production" of words. It is prima facie evidence of linguistic flexibility, proof of the great dexterity of the human mind.

Imagine that you, like Freud's Miss X, would like to express the word cultivate. Your mind activates your semantic network, which represents the meanings of the 30,000 or so words in your vocabulary. In getting to cultivate, neural nodes that have something to do with the concept (nurturing, tending, developing, fostering) are set in motion until the one word with the strongest activation, cultivate, is selected, and placed in the frame of the sentence.

The phonological network then needs to activate all the sounds of the chosen word: the k sound, the u sound and so on, avoiding interference from competing nodes for sounds like the pesky p and others. For cultivate to be grammatically correct in a sentence, the lexical network also kicks in and activates nodes that represent the parts of speech in the word string—nouns, verbs, adjectives, suffixes, prefixes—as well as tenses.

Sometimes nodes for a sound that occurs later in a sentence are activated prematurely and the later sound is substituted for the correct one. The result is a slip known as an anticipation, or forward error. Exhibit A is Ted Kennedy's "breast and brightest" slip: the r sound from brightest rushed into the sentence and corrupted best. In Bush's sexbacks the x sound at the end of the word setbacks turned set into sex. Tiger Woods's "bulging disk" in his back became another part of his anatomy when the node for the k sound at the end of back was activated too soon.

Spreading activation helps explain another type of slip: perseveration, or backwards error. "I love you" becomes "I love loo" because the node for the l sound remains activated too long.

-snip-

As a sleep-deprived new parent, Michael Erard, author of Um...Slips, Stumbles, and Verbal Blunders and What They Mean, suddenly found himself full of malapropisms, saying lunch when he meant breakfast. Speaking quickly also stimulates slippage. The faster you talk, says Dell, the more likely it is that nodes from previous words are still activated; the more interference among nodes, the more speech errors.

Speak slowly and you'll make fewer slips overall—but you'll be especially prone to anticipation errors because your brain has time to cast upstream in a sentence. Multitasking promotes slips because it adds to your mental load. Erard advises the slip-shy to try to banish extraneous thoughts or background noise when speaking; they introduce irrelevant words that may wind up in your speech.

-snip-

Please read the entire article.

It's long, but it goes into great detail about how and why slips of the tongue happen, and how common they are.

And please note that people who are talking a lot, who are talking quickly, and who are stressed for any reason and/or sleep-deprived, are more likely to have slips of the tongue.

I hope some scientific facts will answer questions people might have about whether Biden's slips of the tongue indicate there's anything at all wrong with him.

[Funtatlaguy]

2. Joe just needs to slow down and say less.

Use shorter sentences.
He often rambles after he’s already made his point.
Less is often more.

[highplainsdem]

3. I agree that he rambles, that he's often apparently thinking out loud. But candidates who

limit what they say can often seem to be repeating stump speech lines over and over, or possibly even evading questions, and that can make them seem too rehearsed, even insincere.

[Funtatlaguy]

4. Yes, sometimes he stops himself and says "anyway"...

and then he goes on to a different topic.
That makes me think that his advisers have worked with him on the rambling and to not belabor the point.
I think he can and will get better at it.

[highplainsdem]

7. I've noticed that, too.

One thing re his rambling, though, is that he knows a lot, has experienced a lot, and really does have a lot to say on so many issues, after half a century of public service (47 years of that at the federal level, after being a public defender and city councilman).

And he CARES about those issues.

As opposed to Trump, who's almost always talking about himself, bragging, if he's rambling.

[LincolnRossiter]

9. Candidates who stick to their stump speech and core issues also do very well.

Joe needs to slow down and not go off the cuff too often. It doesn’t bother me when he slips up (I was an intelligence briefer for senior DoD officials for years, and they are, as the article read, bound to happen).

But people will use slip-ups for a guy his age to frame a narrative. That shouldn’t matter much against the dumbass racist-in-chief, but it doesn't compare favorably to someone as sharp and polished as Sanders or Castro or Harris.

[emmaverybo]

33. I will take the gift to reach an audience emotionally over sharpness and polish. Biden is known

for that gift as a public speaker. I would tell him to slow down so as to enunciate each syllable.

But even with flaws, some of the most powerful speakers get message across and listeners feel their authenticity. I always told my speech students you don’t have to be perfect to be a powerful speaker.

Biden puts message over. He gives the audience something that comes from a deeper place.

[highplainsdem]

6. Those moderates hate Trump's words because they hate what he's saying, the intent, not just

occasional misstatements.

We ridiculed Dubya's gaffes, too, but I don't think anyone here believes Dubya was as bad a president, or as bad a human being, as Trump.

And as far as giving voters something better goes...I suggest you check out the reaction to Biden's speech on Wednesday if you think Biden isn't offering something clearly better than Trump is offering, or ever could offer.

[George II]

8. There's a big difference - Biden's "gaffes" are verbal and don't reflect his policies or....

....what's in his heart. trump's are outright, blatant lies, not verbal "gaffes".

[highplainsdem]

12. Exactly.

[peggysue2]

10. Yes, let's talk about Biden's speech on Wednesday

Or is it mere coincidence that on the heels of that brilliant speech there is a huge uptick in Biden gaffe memes????

Here's a thought: there are no coincidences in politics.

Zip, zilch, nada.

The gaffes or slips of tongue will be forgotten. But Joe's speech? That will be remembered.

[highplainsdem]

11. Exactly. Both his Wednesday speech and the CNN interview on Monday were stunning and

showed clearly why he's our strongest candidate.

So his critics can't wait to pounce on gaffes made while he's talking all day at a state fair, and pretend those are somehow disqualifying, or indicative of brain injury or cognitive decline.

I'm sure the people suggesting Biden's slips of the tongue indicate brain problems would scream bloody murder if people around them reacted the same way to the slips of the tongue they must inevitably be making themselves, every single day.

[Voltaire2]

13. WHY IS must read IN ALL CAPS?

[highplainsdem]

14. Because I've seen it that way at times, over the years herr at DU.

I've also sometimes seen it as "MUST read" or as ****Must Read**** with any number of asterisks.

I wanted to differentiate those words from the magazine name and the article headline, and all caps for only 8 letters seemed like a minimally obtrusive way to do so.

And I wanted to denote it as a "must read" because if people here are going to keep talking about slips of the tongue, they really should learn SOME facts about them (especially if they're going to suggest that slips of the tongue are disqualifying for a candidate, or at the very least cause for serious concern). And that article had more facts about slips of the tongue than I'd been able to find anywhere else.

I hope you read the article, rather than just quibbling over 8 letters in the subject line of the OP.

[Voltaire2]

15. I've learned here recently that it is very important to get to the bottom of the ALLCAPS

far more important than actually discussing anything of substance.

But if instead it is merely being used as an intentional distraction to derail threads, that is a whole different story.

[highplainsdem]

16. Well, I'm sure everyone here is grateful that you're careful to find out why 8 letters out of 39

are capitalized. Otherwise they might think you're simply trying to derail this thread.

[Voltaire2]

17. eXacTlY

[WhiskeyGrinder]

18. STG people will excuse absolutely anything he says.

[highplainsdem]

19. This is an explanation of why everyone makes slips of the tongue. A scientific explanation.

[WhiskeyGrinder]

20. I was responding to your last thought in your OP.

[highplainsdem]

21. I was simply pointing out why this scientific article is relevant here.

[keithbvadu2]

22. The verbal version of auto-correct changing your test message in a vastly different way than you int

The verbal version of auto-correct changing your test message in a vastly different way than you intended.

[highplainsdem]

24. Good description. I sometimes do that kind of thing while typing, and I call it "auto-typing" -- I

start typing a word and after a few letters find myself automatically finishing a different word beginning with the same letters, usually one that I type more often.

And there have been times I've been talking to someone while typing, and I find myself typing in a word or two from the conversation.

The more you're trying to do, the more you're thinking about, the more likely you are to make this kind of mistake.

[keithbvadu2]

27. yeah! Multi-tasking but not multi-separating.

yeah! Multi-tasking but not multi-separating.

I see that I typed 'test' instead of 'text'.

[Tipperary]

23. Good article.

Thanks for posting it.

[highplainsdem]

25. You're welcome! I was so happy to find an arricle that explained slips of the tongue

so thoroughly. I was hoping others would find it interesting as well.

[napi21]

26. I heartd someone on MSNBC say "That's just Joe. Stop trying to read stuff into it that's not there"

I agree with that. If Joe hadn't served as VP for 8 years and people got to know who he really was, and how he acts and thinks, I'd understand all the fuss, but he DID. Everyone knew what he meant. Let his competitors complain about it, it won't matter to his supporters. The people know him now, and they like him and trust him.

[highplainsdem]

28. It's Joe, true, but it's also all of us to at least some extent. Most of us tend to forget our own

gaffes, or minimize them, or sometimes completely overlook them. We don't have them recorded and published everywhere, or we'd be cringing.

Anyway, there was a hilarious example of this on MSNBC this evening, with Charles Pierce on Chris Hayes's show. They were criticizing Biden for his gaffes, and Pierce said Biden was a TERRIBLE candidate because of the gaffes. They talked about Biden still continuing to poll well. And towards the end of that segment Pierce said, "It's still early. It's August 2015."

And he didn't even notice his own gaffe.

[emmaverybo]

32. That's what makes his gaffe doubly funny. He didn't even know he did the very thing he was

basing his criticism of Joe on.

[oasis]

29. The More You Know🌈

[highplainsdem]

34. I like to keep learning new things. I'd seen some more general articles on how the brain can

produce slips of the tongue, for all of us, but this article explains it best.

[oasis]

35. It's not that hard to understand. The open minded will "get it". nt

[procon]

30. Language is so wonderfully complex.

I can't begin to grasp all the components discussed in the article, but my ears recognise a good orator and appreciate the bold, and subtle intermix of words that inspire or cause me to think about a new POV that hadn't occurred to me.

Thanks!

[emmaverybo]

31. Enlightening. Thanks.

[DeminPennswoods]

36. Certainly explains a lot about GW Bush

especially the novel production of words part.

[Gothmog]

37. Opinion: There are more important things to worry about than Biden's gaffes

Link to tweet

My response to both was the same, as it was when I was asked about the Biden issue on MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports.” There is a racist sitting in the Oval Office implementing a white supremacist policy agenda. So, you focus on Biden’s mouth marbles, and I’ll keep my eyes on the prize. The prize being the eviction of Trump from the White House.

As Waldman also wrote, Trump “is waging a reelection campaign based on racism and fear,” not to mention being “the most prolific liar in American political history (he just passed 12,000 false or misleading claims).” And what makes the focus on Biden’s mouth extra aggravating is how it wipes our memories of the moronic things said by this president, as my follower @absolut_irish was so kind to remind Biden’s critics.

Link to tweet

Some of these are funny. Some are worthy of a cocked eyebrow. But they are not nearly as consequential as the racist and white supremacist beliefs parroted by Trump and the right-wing echo chamber that found their way into the manifesto of the suspect in the El Paso mass shooting, who told police his target was "Mexicans.” The atmosphere of menace and danger is now indisputable. Your time would be better spent worrying about the shredding of our values, ideals and the rule of law than the flubs of a particular candidate who would put an end to this shameful chapter.

[Gothmog]

38. Concerns about Biden's age and mental fitness are likely overblown

Link to tweet

But concerns about Biden’s age and mental fitness are likely overblown, according to experts on aging and the brain, as well as actuarial tables used by the insurance industry to estimate the health and longevity of customers.....

“He is every bit as sharp as he was 31 years ago. I haven’t seen any change,” Kassell said. “I can tell you with absolute certainty that he had no brain damage, either from the hemorrhage or from the operations that he had. There was no damage whatsoever.”...

“When you hear somebody on TV and they make a mistake during a speech or a debate, you’ve got to cut them some slack,” Olshansky said. “If you’ve ever given a speech, it’s not easy standing in front of a crowd of people — especially standing in front of television cameras with millions of people watching — and avoiding verbal mistakes.”

Biden’s physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor, said in a statement provided by the campaign that “Vice President Biden is in excellent physical condition. He is more than capable of handling the rigors of the campaign and the office for which he is running.”

Kassell, who performed brain surgery on Biden, went a step further: “I am going to vote for the candidate who I am absolutely certain has a brain that is functioning. And that narrows it down exactly to one.”