Chips, cheeks and carols: A review of recurrent perseveration in speech production

Background: Recurrent perseverative errors involve either the complete or partial repetition of a prior response to a new stimulus. They are commonly produced by speakers with aphasia and are difficult to remediate. Aims: This paper reviews research on recurrent perseverative errors with a focus on different theoretical accounts. Main Contribution: Comparisons are drawn between the literature on perseveration in the non-language-impaired population and in aphasia. In addition, theories that relate perseverative errors to underlying levels of language processing breakdown are described and contrasted with those that propose that they are primarily caused by impaired inhibition of recent memory traces. Conclusions: Most recent studies have demonstrated systematic links between patterns of recurrent perseverative errors and underlying levels of language-processing breakdown in individual speakers with aphasia. For the comprehensive investigation of recurrent perseverative errors the examination of both whole word (i.e., total) and phonological (i.e., blended) perseverations is important, as is the use of case series rather than group designs.