2. Method

1. The role of filled pauses in the generation of causal inferences and the recognition of spoken words Jazmín Cevasco National Scientific and Technical Research Council (Argentina) - University of Buenos Aires (jazmincevasco@psi.uba.ar) 1. Introduction Original Version (Filled Pauses Present) Edited Version (No FIlled Pauses) “I’m a language purist, “I’m a language purist, I don’t use slang in my books, I don’t use slang in my books, I don’t consider it necessary, uh…” I don’t consider it necessary…” Target word: CONSIDER Target word: CONSIDER Target Statement: I’m a language purist Target Statement: I’m a language purist • Speakers proceed along two tracks of communication. They use signals in the primary track to refer to the topics of discourse. They use signals in the collateral track to refer to the performance itself – to timing, delays, etc (Clark, 1996). • Filled pauses (i.e. uh, um)allow speakers to signal that they are having production difficulties, actively searching for information or deciding how to continue (Clark & Fox Tree, 2002; Fox Tree, 2001). Uhs, for example, are expected to signal short delays (Fox Tree, 2001). • The comprehension of spontaneous spoken discourse also involves the establishment of discourse connections (Cevasco & van den Broek, 2008; Speer & Blodgett, 2006), which requires for the comprehender to generate causal inferences (van den Broek, 1990, 2010; Zwaan & Rapp, 2006) • This study focused on the generation of reinstatement inferences, which involve the reactivation of information presented previously (before the immediately previous statement), in order to maintain sufficient causal justification for the statement that the listener is processing (van den Broek, 1990). • Given that they indicate that the speaker will pause due to production difficulties, I expected filled pauses to generate a discontinuity or coherence break with the discourse that the comprehender is processing, making it more difficult for him or her to generate reinstatement inferences, and to recognize words that were part of the • statement that preceded them. 3. Results • Words that followed a filled pause were recognized slower than when they were not preceded by them, F (1, 462) = 12.249, p = .001, η2 = .026. • Statements representing causal inferences that were presented following a filled pause were not responded to faster or slower than when they were not preceded by them, F(1, 415) = .001, p = .972, η2 = .000. 2. Method 4. Discussion • Participants • Thirty-two students from the University of Buenos Aires participated in the study. • Materials • Materials were taken from interviews to Argentine writers. Participants were presented with 18 segments of speech that contained a spontaneously produced uh, preceded by a statement that required the generation of a reinstatement inference. In each critical stimulus, a statement from earlier portions of the conversation that provided causal explanation for the statement preceding uh was selected as the target sentence. Also, 18 words that had been part of the statement preceding the filled pause were selected for the word recognition task. For each • critical stimulus, a second version was created where the critical uh was excised. • Procedures • Each participant was randomly assigned to listen to the original or to the edited version of each stimulus. Once the excerpt was over, they were presented with a word, and they had to decide whether they had heard it in the last excerpt or not. They were also presented with a sentence, and they had to say if it helped them understand or explain the last statement they had heard or not. • Filled pauses seem to generate a discontinuity with the explicit information in the statement that precedes them. • Filled pauses do not seem to make it harder to reactivate causally connected statements. • These results support the proposal that, as signal short delays, uhs focus listeners’ attention in upcoming speech (Fox Tree, 2001). That is, theyappear to make the words that are part of previous speech less available. Yet, they do not have the same effect on causally connected statements, perhaps because the listener can expect these to be more relevant to upcoming speech than the surface characteristics of previous discourse. • In conclusion, processing speakers’ production signals such as uh does not appear to make it more difficult to construct a coherent discourse representation, in terms of establishing discourse connections. 5. References Cevasco, J., van den Broek, P. (2008). The importance of causal connections in the comprehension of spontaneous spoken discourse. Psicothema, 20 (4), 801-806. Clark, H. H. (1996). Using language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Clark, H.H., & Fox Tree, J. E. (2002). Using uh and um in spontaneous speaking. Cognition, 84, 73–111. Fox Tree, J. E. (2001). Listeners’ uses of um and uh in speech comprehension. Memory and Cognition, 29, 320–326. Speer, S., and A. Blodgett. (2006). Prosody. Handbook of psycholinguistics, 2nd edn, ed. by M. Traxler and M. A. Gernsbacher, 505–37. San Diego, CA: Academic Press. van den Broek, P.(1990). The causal inference maker: towards a process of inference generation in text comprehension. In D.A. Balota, G.B. Flores d’Arcais, and K. Rayner, Comprehension Processes in Reading (pp. 423-445). Hillsdale, NY: Erlbaum van den Broek, P. (2010). Using texts in science education: cognitive processes and knowledge representation. Science,328, 453-456. Zwaan, R. A., & Rapp, D. N. (2006). Discourse comprehension. In M. Traxler & M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics, 2nd ed. (pp. 725-764). San Diego, CA: Academic Press.