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Semantic determinants of pauses

Semantic determinants of pauses The following experiment presents evidence that variations in semantic context can produce changes in the rate and length of pauses in a situation in which syntactic and other variations are minimized. Each of 40 Ss read two paragraphs aloud and after each paragraph retold the “story” without further instructions. Each paragraph consisted of five sentences, each containing 23 syllables. The third sentence was either in accord with the story or an unusual occurrence (depending on exchange of subject and object). The most important experimental finding was that both number and length of unfilled pauses are more frequent throughout the unusual stories as compared with the usual ones. In the readings, the effect was limited to the critical sentence and the pauses immediately thereafter. The evidence supports the view of the authors that the role of semantic context has been underestimated in psycholiguistic research to date. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Psychological Research Springer Journals

Semantic determinants of pauses

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References (27)

Publisher
Springer Journals
Copyright
Copyright © 1969 by Springer-Verlag
Subject
Psychology; Psychology Research
ISSN
0340-0727
eISSN
1430-2772
DOI
10.1007/BF00424616
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The following experiment presents evidence that variations in semantic context can produce changes in the rate and length of pauses in a situation in which syntactic and other variations are minimized. Each of 40 Ss read two paragraphs aloud and after each paragraph retold the “story” without further instructions. Each paragraph consisted of five sentences, each containing 23 syllables. The third sentence was either in accord with the story or an unusual occurrence (depending on exchange of subject and object). The most important experimental finding was that both number and length of unfilled pauses are more frequent throughout the unusual stories as compared with the usual ones. In the readings, the effect was limited to the critical sentence and the pauses immediately thereafter. The evidence supports the view of the authors that the role of semantic context has been underestimated in psycholiguistic research to date.

Journal

Psychological Research – Springer Journals

Published: Sep 23, 2004

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