Semantic determinants of pauses

SummaryThe 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.ZusammenfassungDas folgende Experiment weist darauf hin, daß Variationen des semantischen Kontextes zu Veränderungen in der Anzahl und Länge von Pausen führen können, auch wenn syntaktische und andere Variationen kontrolliert werden. 40 Vpn lasen zwei Abschnitte laut vor und erzählten die „Geschichte“ nach jedem Abschnitt ohne weitere Instruktion. Jeder Abschnitt bestand aus fünf Sätzen, jeder Satz enthielt 23 Silben. Der dritte Satz stimmte mit dem sonstigen Inhalt der Geschichte überein oder wich davon ab (durch Austausch von Subjekt und Objekt). Als wichtigster experimenteller Befund stellte sich heraus, daß bei den ungewöhnlichen Geschichten die Anzahl und Länge der ungefüllten Pausen größer waren als bei den normalen Geschichten. Bei den Lesungen trat dieser Effekt nur innerhalb des kritischen Satzes und unmittelbar danach auf. Die Ergebnisse unterstützen die Meinung der Autoren, daß die Rolle des semantischen Kontextes in der psycholinguistischen Forschung bisher vernachlässigt wurde.

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