Chapter 9 - Language Production Flashcards
What are the similarities between speaking & writing?
Both involve deciding on the overall message to be considered.
- At this stage, the actual words to be spoken or written aren’t considered.
- This is followed by the production of language, which often proceeds on a clause-by-clause basis.
Both are goal-directed activities having communication as their main goal.
Is there any evidence to show that reading and writing are quite similar?
Harvey et al (2003)
Studied an individual who dictated word-processed academic letters using a voice-recognition system or simply word processed them.
- He had much less experience of dictating word-processed letters.
- In spite of that, the letters he produced by speaking didn’t differ in readability or in typographical and grammatical errors from those that were word-processed.
What are the differences between speaking and writing?
1) Speakers generally have much less time than writers to plan their language production
- Speaking is more spontaneous than writing
- Explains why spoken language is generally shorter and less complex than written language
2) Speakers generally know precisely who is receiving their messages. Writers do not.
3) Speakers have that advantage over writers that they generally receive moment-by-moment feedback from the listeners.
- Allows then to adapt what they say to suit the listener’s needs.
- The fact that writers don’t receive immediate feedback means they must write clearly, and this slows down the communication rate
4) Writers usually have direct access to what they have produced so far, whereas speakers do not. However no difference was found in the quality of texts produced by writers having or not having access to visual feedback of what they had written.
What results from these differences between speaking and writing?
Spoken language is often informal and simple in structure, with information being communicated rapidly
Written language is more formal, and has more complex structure.
- Writers don’t receive immediate feedback so they need to write clearly and this slows down the rate at which they write.
Why is there less research on productive aspects of language?
More difficult to carry out as compared to research on comprehensive aspects of language.
- Can control the material to be comprehended but it is harder to constrain an individual’s production of language and
What are some traits of speech production?
1) Seems relatively effortless
2) We can speak without much preparation or planning
3) Can speak at speeds of 200 words/minute
What entails simplification of speech production and what are some ways you can simplify speech production?
Involves reducing processing costs by producing phrases used frequently before. About 70% of our speech consists of word combinations we use repeatedly.
1) Preformulation
2) Underspecification
3) Syntactic priming
What is preformulation?
What phrases do you frequently repeat in your speech?
- Especially common among people who need to speak very rapidly
What is undersimplification?
Simplified expressions.
Eg: Instead of “Wash and core 6 apples. Put the 6 apples in the oven”, you use “Wash and core 6 apples. Put them in the oven”.
What is syntactic priming and how does it occur?
People just repeat the types of sentences they’ve just heard.
Eg:
Q: At what time do you close?
A: At 9pm.
Occurs even when you are talking about a different topic, and often occurs in the absence of conscious awareness of copying a previous syntactic structure
Describe some evidence that shows people do use syntactic priming.
A confederate of the experimenter described a picture to participants using an adjective noun-order (eg “the red sheep”) or a noun-relative order (eg the sheep that’s red).
Participants used the syntactic structure they had heard even when the 2 words in the 2 sentences were very different.
Why are these speech simplifications so commonly utilised in speech production?
By copying a heard syntactic structure, it reduces processing demands on speech production.
When you repeat the types of sentences you’ve heard from the person you’re speaking to before you speak, it is a conscious process.
True or False?
False.
Speech production can take the form of _________ or ___________.
think of what late night hosts do at the start of their show , and what are interviews?
monolog, dialog which is more common.
How is an interactive dialog more difficult than an interactive monolog?
Dialog: Speakers have to adjust what they say to fit what the previous speaker just said.
How is an interactive dialog easier than an interactive monolog?
Speakers often copy phrases or even sentences they hear when the other person was speaking, which serves as a prime. However, speakers, when making monologs, have to come up with their own ideas.
What does the cooperative principle propose?
Speech typically occurs as a conversation in a social context.
In order for communication to be (reasonably) successful, they have to cooperate with one another. Cooperation meaning smooth switches.
What is one common way a conversation moves from one speaker to the next?
An adjacency pair: What the first speaker says provides strong imitaiton to the listener to take up the conversation.
Eg: A question, followed by an answer. If the 1st speaker completes what he/she intended to say without producing the first part of the adjacency pair, then the next turn goes to the listener who speaks first.
Is there any observation in everyday life that confirms that people do cooperate with each other in conversations?
(usually for normal people, not for MALE CHAUVINIST PIGS!!!!!!!!)
2 people talking at once occurs less than 5% of the time, and there is typically a gap under 500ms between the end of one speaker’s turn and the start of the next speaker’s turn.
Why are the swithces between speakers so smooth?
Those involved in a conversation follow certain rules.
Eg When the speaker gazes at the listener, this is often an invitation to the listener to become the speaker.
If the speaker wishes to continue speaking, he/she can indicate this by hand gestures, or filling pauses with “erm, ah”.
What are some maxims related to the cooperative principle?
1) Maxim of Quantity
2) Maxim of Quality
3) Maxim of Relation
4) Maxim of Manner
What does the Maxim of Quantity propose?
Be as informative as necessary, but not more so.
- What needs to be said depends on what the speaker wishes to describe to the referrent.
- Also necessary to know the object(s) from which the referrent is distinguished.
Eg: If a soccer field has many men and one boy, apt to say “the boy is good at soccer”.
However, if the field has only boys, it doesn’t make sense to only say that sentence, perhaps you should add in more details “the boy in the red shirt is good at soccer”.
Speakers are very good at adhering to the maxim of quantity. True or false?
FALSE. THINK OF THE PROFS AND TEACHERS WE HAD THAT LIKE TO BEAT AROUND THE BUSH.
We are only MODERATELY successful, sadly.
- If there is only one apple, if follows from the maxim of quantity that speakers should say something like “Put the apple in the box”
- However, speakers produced an unncessarily detailed sentence “Put the apple on the towel in the box”.
- Speakers often find it cognitively demandint to work out that listeners don’t need to additional information and then to delete it while preparing their utterance.
What is the maxim of quality?
Is sarcasm/irony a maxim of quality?
To be truthful.
Yes.
What is the maxim of relation?
Saying things RELEVANT to the situation
What is the maxim of manner?
Be easy to understand (Brief and ambiguous)
What are some ways one can enhance communication?
Gestures
Discourse Markers
Prosodic Cues
People generally make various gestures coordinated in ______ and ________ to the words being spoken.
time, meaning
How doe gestures serve a communicative function?
It increases listeners’ ability to make sense of the speaker’s message. –> designed to assist in communication.
Is there evidence to show that many gestures produced by speakers are designed to assist in communication?
Asked speakers to describe an animated cartoon to a video camera. –> 2 conditions: 1) Speakers were told that the camera was being used as a webcam, and that another participant would be watching and listening to them. 2) They were told the information would be sent to an artificial audiovisual summariser but not to another person.
There were 6 times as many gestures per 100 words when the speakers thought they were communicating with another person.
Are speakers attentive to their listener’s needs and is there evidence to prove this?
Jacobs and Garnham
Yes, they are.
Speakers describe comic strips to listeners. When the listener was attentive and couldn’t see the comic strips, speakers made plentiful gestures. When the listener was inattentive and could see the comic strips, speakers made far fewer gestures.
Do speakers underestimate the value of gestures in communication?
What does this say about the usefulness of gestures?
Yes.
Asked pairs of participants to use words and gestures to describe the layout of an apartment.
Speakers thought only 25% of their gestures provided essential information, but 97% of their gestures actually provided additional information
Gestures are far more effective than words at communicating information about features of the apartment, such as the sizes, shapes and locations of the various rooms. They are especially useful for conveying SPATIAL information, which was of special relevance to the task.
Speakers use gestures mainly because they provide useful visual information to listeners.
Is this always true? Provide an example.
Not always, only partially.
Speakers do make gestures while on the phone as it makes it easier for them to communicate what they want to say, and makes retrieval of words easier.
What are discourse markers?
Words or phrases used by a speaker (eg so, oh) that assist communication even though they are only of indirect relevance to his/her message
How does context influence the use of discourse markers? Give some examples.
You use oh and well more in casual convos than in interviews, whereas “you know”, “like”, “I mean” is used equally in both. But avoid using “like” in interviews.
However, most argue that “oh” and “um” indicate the speaker is experiencing difficulties in deciding what to say next.
Also, “oh” and “so” are used by speakers when moving to a new convo topic. The former shifts focus to the speaker and the latter to the listener.
Why do such differences that arise out of context occur?
Speakers need to respond more to what the other person has said in convos rather than listeners
What are prosodic cues?
various aspects of speech (eg rhythm, stress) used by speakers to assist communication, used most often by speakers when what they are saying is somewhat ambiguous.
Eg: “Tap the frog with the flower” –> can mean
Tap the frog holding the flower” or “Tap the frog and the flower together” –> people provided more prosodic cues.
Do speakers always use prosodic cues when they are needed? Give evidence?
Not always. Often fail to provide even when they are needed.
Asked participants to read ambiguous sentences to convey a specific meaning, with listeners deciding which meaning was intended. Speakers didn’t use prosodic cues or used them ineffectively cos listeners only guessed them correctly 61% of the time
SInce listeners guessed correctly only 61% of the time, what does this say about the use of prosodic cues by speakers?
Just because they use prosodic cues does not mean they are doing it for the sake of the listener or to facilitate communication with them. Even when producing spontaneous sentences, speakers still use prosodic cues.
What is common ground?
The speaker and listener work together to maximize common ground (ie shared beliefs, expectations, and knowledge). –> trying to get on the same wavelength
What are 2 possible strategies one might use with respect to the common ground?
Shared responsiblity: the speaker may expect the listener to volunteer information if he/she notices a problem in the common ground.
Cognitive overload: The speaker may try to keep track of the listener’s knowledge as well as his/her own, but generally finds that it requires excessive cognitive processes.
What are some global assumptions made by the speaker about the listener to establish common ground?
His language, general knowledge and experience
What are some local assumptions made relating to what the listener knows or is attending at any given moment?
No fixed ones.
Speakers are more likely to make incorrect local assumptions than global ones because local assumptions keep changing.
However, in spite of these problems, Speakers and listeners frequently achieve common ground fairly effortlessly. Because speakers often copy phrases and even sentences they heard when the other person was speaking. So other person’s words serve as a prime or prompt.
What are problems related to the common ground?
Give an example.
Speakers often plan utterances without considering listener’s perspective and common ground. However, these plans are then mentioned and corrected to take account of the common ground.
Horton and Keysar (1996): Speakers has to describe a moving object so that a listener could identify it.
- 2 (shared vs non shared context) x 2 ( rapid vs slow speech production), for 2nd variable, object descriptions have to be produced
quickly or slowly (do at ur own pace)
In both conditions (shared vs non-shared), participants described the additional object to the listener, whether or not the listener could see the object, suggesting that speakers are not using common ground.
If the participants were using common ground, what would have happened?
They should have utilised contextual information in their descriptions only in the shared-context condition. Happened in the unspeeded condition. However, those in the speeded condition included contextual information into their descriptions regardless of its appropriateness. In this condition, there was insufficient time for the cognitively demanding monitoring process to operate.
Give evidence of cognitive overload in common ground.
Asked Speakers to describe the route on a map so another person (the experimenter’s confederate) could reproduce it. Each speaker had access to 2 kinds of information indicating the confederate was having difficulties in reproducing the route: 1) Confederate said he/she had a problem 2)Confederate’s fake eye movements were focused away from the correct route.
According to the shared responsibility strategy, the speaker should pay more attention to what the confederate said to than his/her direction of gaze.
According to the cognitive overload strategy, the speaker should focus more on the gaze feedback than on what the confederate said, because it is easier to process gaze information. However, Speakers took much more account of what the confederate said.
Why do people study speech errors?
To understand speech production processes
Give examples of speech errors (5).
Lexical bias effect Spoonerisms Mixed-error effect Blending Morpheme-exchange errors
What is the lexical bias effect?
The tendency for speech errors to form words rather than non-words. Our speech errors are not random in nature.
What is the most used way of studying the lexical bias effect? Illustrate using Baars’ example.
Presented word pairs in rapid succession and the participants have to say both words in a pair rapidly.
- With some word pairs, swapping the first letters produced 2 new words (Eg deep cot –> keep dot)
- This wasn’t the case with other word pairs –> key finding was that people made many more slips consisting of words and non-words.
What can explain the lexical bias effect? Give an example to support this.
It can be related to Freudianship, a motivated speech error revealing a person’s true desires.
- Freud emphasised speech errors related to sex.
Motley (1980): Male participants said out loud pairs of items such as “goxi furl” and “bine foddy” - Experimenter was a male or a female was was by design, attractive, personable, very provocatively attired and seductive in behaviour.
- He then counted the number of sex-related spoonerisms when the passions of the male participants were inflamed by the experimenters.
What is a spoonerism?
A speech error in which the initial letter or letters of 2 words (typically close together) are mistakenly switched, an example of lexical bias.
Typically occurs over short distances within the sentence. Suggests that the sounds of words to be spoken are only planned shortly in advance. It’s a sound-exchange error
Eg: “dear old queen” -> “queer old dean”
What is a mixed-error effect?
A type of speech error where the incorrect word is related in terms of both meaning and sound to the correct one.
Eg: “Let’s stop” –> “Let’s start”
What does the existence of mixed-error effect suggest? Provide evidence about these findings.
The various levels of processing interact flexibly with each other. The mixed-error effect suggests that semantic and phonological factor can both influence word selection at the same time.
In the key condition, participants were presented with an incomplete sentence such as “I thought that there would still be some left, but there were …” followed by picture naming of a priest.
Participants often produced the wrong word “none”, when they were supposed to say “priest”. Occurred due to the semantic similarity between priest and nun, combined with the phonological identity of “nun” and “none”.
What is blending?
“The sky is shining” instead of “The sky is blue” or “The sun is shining”.
What is a morpheme-exchange error?
“He has already trunked the packs”
instead of “he has already packed the trunks”
What is a semantic-substitution error?
When the correct word to say is replaced by a word of similar meaning.
(perhaps the mixed-error effect falls under this?)
- In 99% of the cases, nouns substitute for nouns, and verbs substitute for verbs.
- Eg: “Where is my tennis bat? becomes “Where is my tenis racket?”
What is a number-agreement error?
Singular verbs are mistakenly used with plural subjects or vice versa.
Eg “The family of mice” or “the family of rats” –> verbs used in both cases should be singular form, but many people use the plural verb for such sentences because family is a collective noun. This tendency is greater when the noun closest to the verb is obviously plural.
Why does the number-agreement error occur?
We often have insufficient processing resources to avoid such errors.
Evidence: Asked participants to decide if sentences were grammatical or not.
- Was done with or without an externally imposed cognitive load. Participants with load found it especially difficult to make accurate decisions based on subject-verb agreement.
What are the 3 stages of speech production?
1) Conceptualization
2) Formulation
3) Articulation
What does the spreading-activation model propose about speech production?
Activation or energy spreads from an activated node (eg word) to related nodes or words. Processes involved in speech production occur in parallel (at the same time).
Processes involved in speech and word production proceed neatly and tidily from the semantic level through the syntactic and morphological levels down to the phonological levels –> typically interact with each other.
When we plan an utterance, this leads to activation of several of the sounds and words in the intended sentence before we speak.
What is one crucial assumption about the spreading-activation model?
Speech errors occur whenever an incorrect item is more activated than the correct one.
The spreading-activation theory is motivated by what kinds of errors? Define and give examples of them.
1) Anticipatory: Sounds or words are spoken ahead of their time. Mainly reflects inefficient planning.
- “sun is in the sky” –> “sky is in the sun”
2) Perseveratory: Sounds or words are spoken later than they should have been. Reflects failure to monitor what one is about to say.
- “beef noodle” –> “beef needle”
3) Exchange
- “clear blue” to “glear plue”
What is a problem with the spreading-activation approach?
It seems to predict that we would make more speech errors than is actually the case.
How can chaos be avoided?
Through learning, we possess a “syntactic learning cop”. It monitors what we intend to say and inhibits any words not belonging to the appropriate syntactical or grammatical category. This cop explains why wenearly always replace a noun with a noun and a verb with a verb.
What is aphasia?
A condition due to brain damage in which the patient has severely impaired language abilities.
These people have suffered damage to the syntactic language cop and thus make numerous syntactic errors.
How did Dell et al assess the effects of practice on the anticipatory proportion (proportion of total errors - anticipatory + perseveratory - that is anticipatory?
1) Participants were given extensive practice at saying several tongue twisters.
- No of errors decreased as a function of practice, but the anticipatory proportion increased from 0.37 early in practice to 0/59 at the end of practice.
What did Dell et al argue about the types of errors people make?
Speech errors are most likely when the speaker hasn’t formed a coherent speech plan. In such circumstances, there will be relatively fewer anticipatory errors, so anticipatory proportion decreases as overall error rate (A+P) increases.
Expert speakers plan ahead more than novice speakers, so a higher proportion of their errors should be anticipatory.
What did Dell et al obtain from this experiment?
He worked out the overall error rate and the anticipatory proportion for several sets of data. Anticipatory proportion decreased from about 0.75 with low overall error rates, to about 0.40 with high overall error rates.
What were the main takeaways from Dell’s experiment?
Anticipatory proportion increased as a function of age –> predicted by the theory because older children and young adults would have had more practice in practicing language.
Fast speech produced a higher error rate than slow speech and also resulted in a lower anticipatory proportion.
- Is in agreement with the prediction that a higher overall error rate should be associated with a reduced anticipatory proportion.
Use the spreading-activation model to describe how speech errors occur.
Since there is spreading activation, numerous nodes (several phonemes and words) are activated all at the same time. Speakers generally produce the sounds most highly activated at any given moment.
If an incorrect item is activated more strongly than the correct item, it may get selected instead, hence leading to speech errors.
How does the spreading-activation model at the word level explain the lexical bias effect?
Activation at the word level: seeing the words “deep cot” may activate the words “keep” and “dot” and this extra activation may produce an error.
We may monitor our own internal speech before speaking out loud to eliminate any nonwords.
- Monitoring system asks the question “Is this a word?”
- Both explanations possess some validity. Evidence that we engage in self-monitoring of our internal speech was reported. Used the most common way of studying lexical bias effect to study this.
- Participants frequently started to produce a spoonerism but they stopped themselves and produced the correct word (Eg: wants to say barn door, but ends up saying “d…barn door”)
What is writing?
Involves the retrieval and organization of information stored in long-term memory.
Involves: planning, sentence-generation, revision.
What is used to identify the processes involved in writing?
Directed retrospection. A technique used in writing research whereby writers stop at various times during the writing process and categorise what processes have been engaged.
What is the average percentages spent on:
a) planning
b) sentence-generation
c) revision
30, 50, 20
By obtaining video recordings of people writing essays on computers, what findings were obtained from Levy and Ransdell (1995) about the time spent between process involved in writing?
Length of time spent on each process before moving on to the next was often very short.
- Initially spent 40% of the time on planning, decreased to 30%.
- Text generation: 7.5s, planning/reviewing/revising: 2.5 seconds each.
What does Levy and Ransdell’s findings imply about the process involve in writing?
1) The various processes involved in writing are heavily interdependent and much less separate than we imagine them to be.
2) Writers who shifted rapidly among the various writing processes tended to produce the best quality texts.
3) Writers were only partially aware of how they allocated time, as evidenced by how they overestimate time spent on reviewing and revising and underestimate time spent on text generation.
4) Writers who produce outlines before writing take up more time on planning, but they produce better quality work.
What is planning?
Producing ideas and organising them into a writing plan to satisfy the writer’s goals
What is sentence-generation?
Turning writing plan into actual writing of sentences.
What is revision?
Evaluating what has been writtne.
Focus ranges betwen individual words and the overall structural coherence.
What kinds of knowledge does planning rely heavily on?
1) Conceptual Knowledge: Information about concepts and schemas stored in long-term memory.
2) Socio-cultural Knowledge: Information about the social background or context
3) Meta-cognitive Knowledge: Knowledge about what one knows.
How big is the gap between your writing plan/outline and actual writing sample? ‘
What is the average length of sentences produced by writers? (note: differs according to aptitude)
8 times longer.
Good writer: 11.2 words, average writer: 7.3. Good writers use larger units or “building blocks:
The fact that expert writers spend so much more time revising their writing implies that revision is ___? What else are expert writers concerned with?
key component of writing.
coherence and structure.
What differentiates better writers from normal ones when it comes to the planning processes they use?
Explain what these processes are.
Key: different approach.
Normal: Knowledge telling: involves simply writing everything you know about a topic with minimal planning.
- Text already generated provided retrieval clues for generating the rest of the text
- Usually used by children aged 0-12 (?): write their “whole bunch of ideas” until their supply of ideas is exhausted.
- Regurgitating everything in your LTM usually results in not so good writing.
Good writers: Knowledge-transforming: With increasing writing expertise, most adolescents shift from the knowledge-telling strategy to the knowledge-transforming strategy. Involves the use of a rhetorical problem space and a content problem space.
- You write down to achieve a particular goal.
What is a rhetorical problem space and a content problem space?
What is usually the case for good writers when it comes to using these problem spaces?
Rhetorical: Related to the achievement of the goals of the writing task. –> Can i strengthen the argument?
Content: Related to the specific information to be written down
- Eg: The case of John Smith strengthens the argument
For them, there should be movement in both directions b/w content space and rhetorical space.
How are those who use knowledge-transforming better than those who use knowledge-telling?
They are more likely to produce high-level main points capturing important themes.
- Those who produced a high-level main point used on average 4.75 different knowledge-transforming processes –> planning, translating, reviewing.
- In contrast, those who used knowledge-telling produced a low-level main point. 0.23 knowledge-transforming processes on average.
However, with this being said, what other factors can determine whether someone will successfully use the planning process?
The amount of relevant knowledge one has.
Compared adults possessing much knowledge or little knowledge about something
Found that experts produced more sub goals and goals, and they constructed a more complex plan overall writing plan + had more inter-connected goals.
How else do expert writers differ from novices?
They will focus explicitly on the needs of potential readers –> evidence of the use of knowledge-crafting strategy
- Get feedback from readers who are not experts in what you are writing about.
They are also more adept at revision than non-experts
- Detected 60% more problems in a text
- Correct identification of the nature of the problem: 74% vs 42%.
- Writers who produced the best essays spent 40% more of their time reviewing and revising them than those who produced essays of poorer quality.
Note: revisions made towards the end of the writing session were especially important.
What is the knowledge effect? How to prevent this?
The tendency of writers to assume mistakenly that those reading what they have written posses the same knowledge.
Can be reduced by providing writers with detailed feedback from writers, or explicitly instructing them to consider the reader’s needs.
Experts writing something on their expertise are quite liable to overestimation of the amount of relevant knowledge produced by their readers
Is there evidence to show how the knowledge effect can be mitigated?
Revisions made to a text by students aged 11-15 were improved by the instruction to “read as the reader”.
However, feedback from readers themselves was extremely effective. Schriver (1984) asked students to read an imperfect text and predict the comprehension problems another reader would have. Then the students read a reader’s verbal account produced while he/she tried to understand the text. After the students had been given various texts plus readers’ accounts, they became better at predicting the problem readers would have.
What can be said about the process of writing when it related to working memory?
a) Ease of writing?
b) Involves what types of cognitive processes?
c) Which part of working memory does it mainly involve?
d) Difficulty level wrt to other processes?
Intrinsically effortful and difficult, and involves complex cognitive decisions (eg attention, thinking, memory)
- Might be because writing involves working memory
All the main processes involved in writing depend on the central executive of working memory, and writing is likely to suffer if any writing process is made more difficult (eg write only in CAPS or in the presence of distractors)
Composition was more demanding than transcription, because composition involves planning and sentence generation (composition + transcription is more demanding than composition on its own). But this also shows that writers can engage in both higher-order processes (composition) and lower-order processes (transcription) at the same time.
What evidence is there to show that composition is more demanding than transcription?
Participants wrote a narrative or an essay in normal handwriting
- Could engage in translating or sentence generation while actually writing, and could sometimes combine actual writing with planning.
Another condition: Participants had to write in an unfamiliar writing that was relatively effortful.
- They were less likely to combine writing processes with actual writing, presumably because using an unfamiliar handwriting was cognitively demanding.
Describe the probe technique used by Olive and Kellogg (2002). Include the following:
- Assumptions made by themm
- Participant recruited.
- Method
Measured response times to auditory probes while participants were engaged in writing to assess the processing demands of planning. If writing uses much of the available capacity of working memory, especially the central executive, then reaction times should be longer in the writing condition.
3 conditions:
1) Transcription: Just copy the completed essay
2) Composition: More demanding process as it involves planning and sentence-generation. You have to compose a text and pause in writing when the auditory signal is presented.
3) Transcription + Composition: A text had to be composed, and the participant continued writing when an auditory signal was presented.
Composition was more demanding than transcription because composition involved planning + sentence generation. Composition + transcription was more demanding than composition itself. but shows that writers can engage in both higher-order processes like planning and lower-order processes like writing words at the same time.
Increasing trend for conditions: x-axis (condition), y-axis (reaction time interference/ms)
Are there other findings associated with the probe task that shows that higher order + lower order can occur at the same time?
a) handwriting
b) level of knowledge
c) processing demands of processing, translating and reviewing (write vs use word processor)
A) In one condition, participants wrote an essay in their normal handwriting vs in an unfamiliar writing that was relatively effortful.
- normal: can engage in translating or sentence generation while actually writing, and sometimes combined actual writing and planning together.
- unfamiliar: less likely to combine writing processes with actual writing, presumably because using an unfamiliar handwriting was cognitively demanding.
B) Assumed that writers with much relevant knowledge about an essay topic would have large amounts of well-organized information stored in long-term memory.
- This knowledge should reduce the effort involved in writing an essay.
- Asked students with varying degrees of relevant knowledge to write an essay about baseball and used the probe technique to assess processing demands.
- Processing demands were lower in those with bg knowledge
Found that
assumed that word processor more demanding than writing
1) Probe reaction times are slowed down considerably during planning, translating and reviewing, indicating that all 3 processes are very demanding.
2) Reviewing or revising was more demanding than planning and translating.
3) Word processing was more demanding than writing in longhand.
They also found that for participants with low working memory capacity, ______ was more demanding of processing resources than comprehension.
What does this suggest?
Reviewing/revising.
Suggests that text reviewing/revising is especially demanding for such individuals.
What is the most demanding writing process?
Reviewing/revising
- Suggests that translating or sentence generation may be less demanding than planning.
Why is reviewing/revising very demanding?
Which component of working memory does it involve?
involves language comprehension processes + problem solving+ decision making
central executive, especially so for the revision process.
How was the involvement of the central executive in writing assessed?
Considering writing performance at the general (eg planning, sentence generation revision) and specific levels (eg grammar, punctuation)
Individuals with the most effective central executive functioning had the best writing performance at both levels.
High levels of central executive functioning is associated with good performance on the various stages of writing (planning, translation, revision)
What can be said about the use of the phonological loop in writing and how was it studied?
When phonological loop is engaged (eg via articulatory suppression), writing is impaired.
Chenoweth and Hayes (2003): 2 conditions
1) Simple task; Transcribe or copy texts from one computer window to another.
2) Participants performed the task of typing sentence to describe cartoons on its own, or repeat a syllable continuously.
Articulatory suppression caused writers to produce shorter sequences of words in rapid succession, suggesting it suppressed their inner voice. However, for the simple task, in spite of its apparent simplicity, participants copied more slowly and made more errors than if they did articulatory suppression.
When the visuo-spatial sketchpad is engaged, what can be said about one’s performance on working memory tasks?
How was this studied?
Writing performance is impaired for the description of concrete, but not abstract words.
Asked students to write descriptions of concrete (eg house, pencil) and abstract (love, freedom etc) nouns while performing a detection task. Writing task slowed detecting times for visual stimuli only when concrete words were being described. Thus, the visuo-spatial sketchpad is more involved when writers are thinking about concrete nouns than abstract nouns.
What are some limitations of Kellogg’s approach?
1) Doesn’t indicate why planning and sentence generation are so demanding -> need a more fine-grain analysis of writer’s strategies during the planning process.
2) Doesn’t discuss how we allocate or limited resources during writing.
What does a meta-analysis of word processing reveal?
2
1) Students who use word processors, compared to those who write in longhand, were more involved and produced higher quality essays. However, this may apply to those who have decent typing skills.
- If your typing skills are below average, you have to devote much of your attention to typing rather than focusing on what you’re typing. Therefore, you perform worse.
2) word processing does lead to more effortful planning and revision.
- Probe technique: Those who used word processors were much less likely than those writing in long-hand to make notes (12% vs 69%)
Since using processors to produce essays results in better quality, there is a dramatic difference between typing essays and writing them.
True or false?
False, as this only concerns production method of writing.
Other factors, such as access to relevant knowledge, skill at generating sentences and ability to revise text effectively are essential to high-quality writing.
However, the balance of advantage clearly lies with word processing as compared to writing in longhand.
What are facilitation effects?
How is it studied?
According to Dell’s spreading activation theory, information about several words is often processed at the same time.
Participants named target pictures while ignoring simultaneously presented distractor pictures. The names of the objects in the 2 pictures are phonologically related (eg dog doll, ball wall) or unrelated.
Found that the naming of target pictures was faster when accompanied by phonologically related distractors.
