{"74049":{"#nid":"74049","#data":{"type":"news","title":"When the Tongue Slips, the Eyes Have It","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EHow is it that we can look at a door and accidentally call it a window or call a shovel a rake? When people mislabel objects, they often blame themselves for rushing their words or not paying attention. But research at the Georgia Institute of Technology, published in the December issue of Psychological Science, suggests the mistakes may have less to do with concentration than previously thought. The findings provide an insight into how the brain organizes speech and suggests that when the tongue slips, the eyes may be the best window into a speaker\u0027s intent.\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003E\u0022People typically look at objects before naming them, it\u0027s part of the way they plan the words they are going to say, said Zenzi Griffin, assistant professor of psychology at Georgia Tech.  \u0022So, if people are rushing or being inattentive you might expect if they made an error that they spent less time looking at the object. But I found almost no difference in the amount of time people spent looking at an object when they made an error compared to when they didn\u0027t. In fact, people who made an error spent slightly more time looking at the object.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EIn the study, Griffin asked participants to name two or three line-drawn objects or describe the action in a scene, while she tracked their eye movements using video cameras outfitted with special software. She identified 41 full or partial speech errors uttered by 33 participants during eye-tracking experiments.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThe results, said Griffin, show that at some level people know what they meant to say and that looking at the object doesn\u0027t help to ensure that they will name it correctly. They also suggest that when a person makes a speech error, knowing what they are looking at may be more informative of their intentions than the words they say.\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EThat may be useful to designers of speech recognition software, said Griffin. \u0022Gaze can potentially provide clues to what uncertain words are - at least when people are talking about things in their immediate environment, like in a cockpit or an automobile,\u0022 she said. \u0022Gaze can also help to disambiguate which object you are referring to, so if you say \u0027Open the door,\u0027 the software could know to which door you are referring.\u0022\n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003EMedia Contact: David Terraso, 404-385-2966, \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:david.terraso@icpa.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Edavid.terraso@icpa.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E \n\u003C\/p\u003E\n\u003Cp\u003ETechnical Contact: Zenzi Griffin, 404-894-6771, \u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:zenzi.griffin@psych.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Ezenzi.griffin@psych.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"When people mislabel objects, they often blame themselves for rushing their words or not paying attention. But research at Georgia Tech suggests the mistakes may have less to do with concentration than previously thought.","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Eyes provide clues when speakers make mistakes."}],"uid":"27310","created_gmt":"2005-01-20 01:00:00","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:02:30","author":"David Terraso","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2005-01-20T00:00:00-05:00","iso_date":"2005-01-20T00:00:00-05:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"74050":{"id":"74050","type":"image","title":"Zenzi Griffin","body":null,"created":"1449178037","gmt_created":"2015-12-03 21:27:17","changed":"1475894686","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:44:46"}},"media_ids":["74050"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[],"news_room_topics":[],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003E\u003Cstrong\u003EGeorgia Tech Media Relations\u003C\/strong\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003ELaura Diamond\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:laura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u0022\u003Elaura.diamond@comm.gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-894-6016\u003Cbr \/\u003EJason Maderer\u003Cbr \/\u003E\u003Ca href=\u0022mailto:maderer@gatech.edu\u0022\u003Emaderer@gatech.edu\u003C\/a\u003E\u003Cbr \/\u003E404-660-2926\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["david.terraso@comm.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}