Successful Speaking: Cognitive Mechanisms of Adaptation in Language Production

This chapter reviews research on language production from a psycholinguistic perspective. Much recent research in this area has investigated how the production system adapts to current circumstances and to circumstances that are generally more likely. The chapter describes long-term adaptive mechanisms that arise from implicit learning within the production system and several short-term mechanisms that help the system prevent errors, promote fluency, and manage the flow of information so that listeners can easily understand what is being said.