Word choice involves competition between multiple candidate words in 'semantic space'; when one word is overwhelmingly activated (like 'dog' when seeing a dog), no error occurs; but when multiple words are nearly equally activated, audible competition manifests as speech errors, hesitations, and word blends.
causalpending
Speaker
Douglas HofstadterEvidence Quote
“semantic space...dog is the is the big winner. It's very activated...fox is a little bit activated...there's no visible or audible...competition. But a lot of the time when we speak there is audible competition. [56:29]”
Created: 8/12/2026, 6:12:22 PM
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