Even healthy people who don’t have Aphasia sometimes find themselves looking for the right word while their minds go blank, or substituting the wrong sounds for the correct ones. These small mistakes are a lot less frustrating for most people than they are for persons with Aphasia because they occur much less frequently. Scientists, however, are interested in knowing more about these mistakes because it helps them understand how language works.
…speech errors are tough for researchers to document and analyze because they can’t be replicated easily in a lab setting. Now, there’s an online tool (registration required) allowing everyday people to engage in “citizen science” by recording speech errors. Its creators hope to crowdsource the most complete database of speech errors ever created and forge new insight into the acquisition, production, and perception of language.
Read more about speech mistakes and how to help language research by entering your spontaneous mistakes online: