On the Effects of Disfluency in Complex Cognitive Tasks

While much previous research has suggested that decreased transcription fluency has a detrimental effect on writing, there is recent evidence that decreased fluency can actually benefit cognitive processing. Across a series of experiments, I investigated the effects of experimental manipulations of transcription fluency on various aspects of essay writing (e.g., lexical sophistication), but also in the context of a single word generation task. In Chapter 1, I introduced disfluency by asking participants to type essays using one hand (vs. standard typing). The results showed that decreasing transcription fluency resulted in increased lexical sophistication. I proposed the time-based account of disfluency in composition whereby decreasing transcription fluency allows more time for lexical processes to unfold. In Chapter 2 I demonstrated that less fluent typing is not related to increased pause and revision rates. Chapter 3 provides a test between the time-based account and an account that attributes the effects to the disruption of typical finger-to-letter mappings caused by the disfluency. Here I slowed down participants’ typing by introducing a delay between keystrokes. The results presented in Chapter 3 are consistent with the time-based account. In addition, in Chapter 3 I also tested the hypothesis that, unlike in previous studies, the transcription disfluency manipulation in the current study did not introduce large working memory demands. The time-based account of the effects of disfluency in composition was further supported by the results of mediation analyses presented in Chapter 4. In Chapter 5 I investigated whether effects of disfluency on lexical selection extend beyond composition to a single word generation task. I discuss implications for writing implements, and lexical selection in composition

Behavioral Signatures of Memory Resources for Language:Looking beyond the Lexicon/Grammar Divide

Although there is a broad consensus that both the procedural and declarative memory systems play a crucial role in language learning, use, and knowledge, the mapping between linguistic types and memory structures remains underspecified: by default, a dual‐route mapping of language systems to memory systems is assumed, with declarative memory handling idiosyncratic lexical knowledge and procedural memory handling rule‐governed knowledge of grammar. We experimentally contrast the processing of morphology (case and aspect), syntax (subordination), and lexical semantics (collocations) in a healthy L1 population of Polish, a language rich in form distinctions. We study the processing of these four types under two conditions: a single task condition in which the grammaticality of stimuli was judged and a concurrent task condition in which grammaticality judgments were combined with a digit span task. Dividing attention impedes access to declarative memory while leaving procedural memory unaffected and hence constitutes a test that dissociates which types of linguistic information each long‐term memory construct subserves. Our findings confirm the existence of a distinction between lexicon and grammar as a generative, dual‐route model would predict, but the distinction is graded, as usage‐based models assume: the hypothesized grammar–lexicon opposition appears as a continuum on which grammatical phenomena can be placed as being more or less “ruly” or “idiosyncratic.” However, usage‐based models, too, need adjusting as not all types of linguistic knowledge are proceduralized to the same extent. This move away from a simple dichotomy fundamentally changes how we think about memory for language, and hence how we design and interpret behavioral and neuroimaging studies that probe into the nature of language cognition

The language of instruction: Compensating for challenge in lectures.

Recent studies have used Coh-Metrix, an automated text analyzer, to assess differences in language characteristics across different genres and academic disciplines (Graesser, McNamara, & Kulikowich, 2011; McNamara, Graesser, McCarthy, & Cai, 2014). Coh-Metrix analyzes text on many constructs at different levels, including Word Concreteness (vs. abstractness), Narrativity (vs. informational), Deep Cohesion, Referential Cohesion, and Syntactic Simplicity. In previous research, texts in the natural sciences had lower Narrativity and Word Concreteness than texts in the language arts, but were higher in Syntactic Simplicity and Referential Cohesion. This pattern suggests a form of compensation in which difficulty on one dimension (e.g., Word Concreteness) is compensated for by increasing text ease on another dimension (e.g., Syntactic Simplicity). In the present study, we provide a further test of this compensation idea by analyzing oral language use across humanities and natural science lectures. We demonstrate that decreases in Word Concreteness across lectures are associated with increases in Narrativity, Deep Cohesion, and Syntactic Simplicity. In addition, within lectures, decreases in Word Concreteness are associated with increases in Syntactic Simplicity. Compensatory mechanisms are discussed in this article at different levels of language and discourse

The effects of day of the week on temporal ambiguity resolution

Previous research has suggested that individuals’ resolution of temporal ambiguity relies on experiences in physical domains, as well as on future event valence and emotional experiences. In the current study, we investigate whether the interpretation of a temporally ambiguous question is modulated by the day of the week on which the study was conducted. We asked participants (N = 208) to resolve the ambiguous time question on different days of the week (Monday or Friday). The results of the experiment indicate differences in processing of temporal ambiguity between different days of the week. The study raises the interesting possibility that days of the week can have important implications for resolving temporal ambiguity