Effects of word processing on text revision

Revising is an evaluating and editing process that is an essential part of text production. Is text revising facilitated by the use of word processors? After examining the related research, it is difficult to conclude with certainty that the use of word processors is always effective in improving writers' revising skills, or that their use necessarily leads to the production of higher quality texts. Their effectiveness depends on a large number of parameters (computer equipment, writing skills, task execution conditions) which psychologists are now starting to measure

Design activities: how to analyze cognitive effort associated to cognitive treatments?

Working memory issues are important in many real activities. Thus, measuring cognitive effort (or mental load) has been a main research topic for years in cognitive ergonomics, though no consensual method to study such aspect has been proposed. In addition, we argue that cognitive effort has to be related to an analysis of the evolution of cognitive processes, which has been called "time processing". Towards this end, we present and discuss paradigms that have been used for years to study writing activities and, in experiments reported in this paper, for studying design activities, such as computer-graphic tasks or web site desig

Narrative and descriptive text revising strategies and procedures

Forty-eight children and forty-eight adults of contrasting degrees of expertise made a series of corrections in order to improve a text (narrative or description) in which three within-statement errors and three between-statement errors had been inserted. Subjects used a simplified word processor (SCRIPREV) which recorded all movements of linguistic units. The purpose of this research was to study revising strategies by examining the correction-sequencing procedures implemented by these subjects. The procedures, which were coded in the form of time series, were compared to the time series of model revising procedures (i.e. effective ones) representing three strategies based on certain predefined functional principles (linguistic level, execution order). The adults used two of these strategies. The Simultaneous Strategy for the narrative, and the Local-then-Global Strategy for the description. The children used the Local-then-Global Strategy for the narrative, but did not use any identifiable procedure to revise the description, which they did not manage to totally improve in the expected manner

Students' drafting strategies and text quality

The study reports an analysis of the drafts produced by two groups of students during an exam. Drafts were categorized as a function of some of their graphic features (e.g. their length), and of their different planning strategies used for their production (e.g. note draft, organized draft, composed draft). Grades obtained by the students on their essays related to the different categories of drafts. Results show that 2/3 of both groups of students made some kinds of draft. Drafts mostly consisted of note drafts or long composed drafts. Very few consisted of organized drafts. However, students that wrote these latter drafts obtained the best ratings. Drafting strategy was homogeneous for half of the students who used one category. The other half successively used two drafting modes. In that case they mostly associated writing with jotting down notes or with some marks of organization. Here, again, students who organized, even partially, their drafts obtained the highest grades. Very few corrections were brought to the long drafts and they concerned the surface (spelling or lexicon), not the content or the plan. This research shows that only a limited number of students used an efficient drafting (organized draft) even though such a strategy is generally associated with the highest ratings

Suppressing visual feedback in written composition: Effects on processing demands and coordination of the writing processes

The goal of this experiment was to investigate the role of visual feedback during written composition. Effects of suppression of visual feedback were analysed both on processing demands and on on-line coordination of low-level execution processes and of high-level conceptual and linguistic processes. Writers composed a text and copied it either with or without visual feedback. Processing demands of the writing processes were evaluated with reaction times to secondary auditory probes that were analysed according to whether participants were handwriting (in a composing and a copying tasks) or engaged in high level processes (when pausing in a composing task). Suppression of visual feedback increased reaction times interference (secondary reaction time minus baseline reaction time) during handwriting in the copying task and not during pauses in the composing task. This suggests that suppression of visual feedback affected processing demands of only execution processes and not those of high-level conceptual and linguistic processes. This is confirmed by analysis of quality of the texts produced by participants that were little, if any, affected by the suppression of visual feedback. Results also indicate that the increase in processing demands of execution related to suppression of visual feedback affected on-line coordination of the writing processes. Indeed, when visual feedback was suppressed, reaction time interferences associated to handwriting were not reliable different in the copying task and in the composing task but were significantly different in the composition task, RT interference associated to handwriting being lower in the copying task than in the composition task. When visual feedback was suppressed, writers activated step-by-step execution processes and high-level writing processes, whereas they concurrently activated these writing processes when composing with visual feedback

Effect of screen presentation on text reading and revising. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies

Two studies using the methods of experimental psychology assessed the effects of two types of text presentation (page-by-page vs. scrolling) on participants' performance while reading and revising texts. Greater facilitative effects of the page-by-page presentation were observed in both tasks. The participants' reading task performance indicated that they built a better mental representation of the text as a whole and were better at locating relevant information and remembering the main ideas. Their revising task performance indicated a larger number of global corrections (which are the most difficult to make)

The triple task technique for studying writing processes : on which task is attention focused ?

The triple task technique measures the time and cognitive effort devoted to specific writing processes by combining directed retrospection with secondary task reaction time (RT). Writing a text is the primary task and rapidly detecting auditory probes to index cognitive effort is the secondary task. The third task is retrospecting and categorizing the contents of working memory at the time of each probe. The present paper reviews studies on the reactivity and validity of the technique. Further, one recent criticism of the method's validity is tested here: namely, that the primary task for the experimenter is not the primary task for the writer, thus distorting the time and effort measurements. We found that time and effort allocated to planning, translating, executing, evaluating, and revising was the same when the writer was encouraged by instructions to focus either on the speed of responding or the accuracy of retrospection instead of the text itself. Because writing requires sustained thought and attention to produce a cumulative product, it is apparently difficult to make text production anything but the primary task. The triple task technique offers a useful alternative to pause analysis and verbal protocols for investigating the functional features of writing

Revising strategies for different text types

Forty-eight children and forty-eight adults of contrasting degrees of expertise made a series of corrections in order to improve a text (narrative or description) in which three within-statement errors and three between-statement errors had been inserted. Subjects used a simplified word processor (SCRIPREV) which recorded all movements of linguistic units. The purpose of this research was to study revising strategies by examining the correction-sequencing procedures implemented by these subjects. The procedures, which were coded in the form of time series, were compared to the time series of model revising procedures (i.e. effective ones) representing three strategies based on certain predefined functional principles (linguistic level, execution order). The adults used two of these strategies: the Simultaneous Strategy for the narrative, and the Local-then-Global Strategy for the description. The children used the Local-then-Global Strategy for the narrative, but did not use any identifiable procedure to revise the description, which they did not manage to totally improve in the expected manner

Parler, rédiger: présentation d'un outil d'analyse syntaxique et de quelques résultats

Le psychologue peut analyser la production langagière en étudiant trois types de phénomènes et leurs interrelations : 1) les conditions contextuelles dans lesquelles la production émerge, 2) les processus et connaissances mis en oeuvre pour réaliser la tâche langagière, 3) les caractéristiques du produit langagier. Dans le travail de psychologie expérimentale présenté ci-après, l'organisation syntaxique de corpus oraux et écrits a été caractérisée e quantifiée afin de repérer les déterminants de situation (destinataire, thème) et les contraintes fonctionnelles (cadence de production, possibilité d'autocorrection) qui provoquent des variations dans la structuration syntaxique. Si l'on appelle "système de production", un ensemble articulé de contraintes fonctionnelles qui conditionnent la nature et le déroulement de l'activité d'élaboration d'un texte lors de son ajustement à une situation de communication donnée, les résultats obtenus ont permis de conclure, pour les deux modalités de production (parler, rédiger), à l'utilisation de deux systèmes différents. Leur communauté fonctionnelle n'enlève rien à leurs différences qu'il n'est pas réaliste de négliger ou de réduire à quelques contraintes périphériques de type phonologique ou calligraphique. D'ailleurs, avec de nouvelles méthodologies qui permettent d'étudier, en temps réel, le déroulement même de l'activité (particulièrement de l'activité rédactionnelle, Piolat, 1990), la mise en évidence des différences fonctionnelles entre la production par écrit et la production par oral est encore plus patente

SCRIPTKELL : a tool for measuring cognitive effort and time processing in writing and other complex cognitive activities

We present SCRIPTKELL, a computer-assisted experimental tool that makes it possible to measure the time and cognitive effort allocated to the subprocesses of writing and other cognitive activities, SCRIPTKELL was designed to easily use and modulate Kellogg's (1986) triple-task procedure,.which consists of a combination of three tasks: a writing task (or another task), a reaction time task (auditory signal detection), and a directed retrospection task (after each signal detection during writing). We demonstrate how this tool can be used to address several novel empirical and theoretical issues. In sum, SCRIPTKELL should facilitate the flexible realization of experimental designs and the investigation of critical issues concerning the functional characteristics of complex cognitive activities