The world is not enough to explain lengthening of phonological competitors

Speakers tend to lengthen the durations of words when a phonologically overlapping word has recently been produced. Although there are multiple accounts of why lengthening occurs, all of these accounts generally assume that competition at some point in the production-comprehension process leads to lengthening. We investigated the contexts that lead to competition and consequent lengthening of target word duration. In three experiments, we manipulated the contexts in which a target word was produced. Speakers produced simple descriptions of animations involving referents that shared initial phonology with another potential referent (e.g., hat and hand). In Experiments 1 and 2, we manipulated whether the related referent (i.e. hat) was named by the speaker themselves, by another person, or was unmentioned. Experiment 2 additionally made speakers aware of competitors in the environment. In both experiments, we found that lengthening does not occur whenever there are two referents in the display that could be confused, even when it is clear that they are confusable. Instead, speakers only lengthened target words when the speaker or another person had named the phonologically related word out loud. Experiment 3 tested whether the task relevance of a phonological competitor influenced naming and found that speakers lengthen words that overlap with previously produced words, even when they were no longer competitors in the display. We propose that an auditory memory account best explains these results and discuss the implications of these findings for other accounts of lengthening.