Spoonerisms as Sequencer Conflicts: Evidence from Artificially Elicited Errors

Abstract

Spoonerisms were elicited by presenting a target pair of two CVCs on a memory drum preceded by bias pairs whose only resemblance to the target pair was that the first CVC of each started with the same consonant as the second CVC of the target pair (Experiment I), as well as by using an arrow to create confusion about the order in which a target pair such as barn door was to be said (Experiment II). Both methods had the subjects articulate only the target pairs, and both methods produced the switch of phonemes that characterizes a complete spoonerism. The results are consistent with an explanation that posits conflicting demands from two prearticulatory sequencing systems, a phoneme sequencer and a word sequencer.