Right Hemisphere Prefrontal Cortical Involvement in Text-Speak Processing

Abstract

As text-based communication increases in the civilian and military workplace (Finomore, Popik, Castle, & Dallman, 2010), so does the potential to encounter text-speak. It has been proposed that processing text-speak (I wll tlk 2 u l8tr, I will talk to you later) comes at a cognitive cost (Head, Helton, Russell, & Neumann, 2012). To the authors' knowledge, there have been no studies investigating the potential physiological cost of processing text-speak. In the current study we investigate the cognitive cost of processing text-speak by measuring performance on a dual-task while also measuring cerebral oxygenation in the prefrontal cortex. Sixty-four university students completed a dualtask which included a conscious priming task and a vigilance task. They also completed a text-speak questionnaire (Head, Helton, Russell, Neumann, & Shears, 2011). The behavioral results failed to show any significant difference in performance between text-speak and correctly spelled text. However, the physiological measurements revealed that the right prefrontal cortex has significantly greater activation when text-speak is shown, thus suggesting a RH compensatory effect. A significant correlation between the text-speak questionnaire and right-hemisphere activation suggests that the right-hemisphere contains the cognitive tools for overriding potential difficulties in processing textspeak.

Does Net-Speak Experience Interfere With the Processing of Standard Words? Evidence From Net-Speak Word Recognition and Semantic Decisions

“…When comparing the cognitive processing of net-speak with that of standard language, researchers found that English net-speak words have similar semantic processing characteristics as standard words ( Ganushchak et al, 2010 , 2012 ). Although it requires more cognitive resources for people to process net-speak words or sentences containing net-speak words ( Berger and Coch, 2010 ; Head et al, 2012a , 2013a , b ; Farrell and Lyddy, 2012 ; Sinéad et al, 2015 ), it has not been found that individuals with more experience in net-speak exhibit worse processing of standard words or sentences. These results prove that the relationship (synonymous with different forms) between English net-speak language and standard language is similar to that between a mother tongue and a second language ( Berger and Coch, 2010 ).…”

“…The result is similar to the processing difference between native language and second language, which means that processing semantic information for sentences including textisms involves more neurocognitive resources. One study (Head et al, 2013b) used fNIRS to explore the processing of net-speak and found that compared with the processing of standard English, net-speak processing involved significant activation in the right prefrontal cortex. The authors suggested that this increased activity in the right hemisphere may signify a compensatory effort in processing text-speak sentences, which would indicate that the cognitive cost of net-speak processing is higher.…”

A Systematic Review of The Semantic Vigilance Literature

“…Semantic vigilance, or lexical vigilance, is the ability to attend to and interpret semantic, verbal, written, or languagerelated stimuli (Neigel, Claypoole, Hancock, Fraulini, & Szalma, 2018a). This includes processing whole words or approximate words, such as text-speak words like "c u soon" (Head, Russell, Dorahy, Neumann, & Helton, 2012;Head, Wilson, Helton, Neumann, Russell, & Shears, 2013b), for meaning for extended periods of time. In semantic vigilance tasks, a critical signal tends to be a key word or phrase, presented either visually or auditorily, that has been defined as a target amongst a set of distractors (Neigel et al, 2018a).…”

“…Historically, in earlier studies on semantic vigilance, the ability to elicit a decrement was more sporadic (Deaton & Parasuraman, 1993;Parasuraman & Mouloua, 1987;cf Majtásová & Šípoš, 1974). But, in more recent studies, performance decrements have been observed in semantic vigilance tasks that require individuals to process novel words (Head, Neumann, Helton, & Shears, 2013a), text-speak words (Head, et al, 2012(Head, et al, , 2013b, living and non-living objects (Epling, Russell, & Helton, 2016), and animal and non-animal words (Claypoole, Neigel, Fraulini, Hancock, & Szalma, 2018;Neigel et al, 2018a;Neigel, Dever, Claypoole, & Szalma, 2019;Thomson, Besner, & Smilek, 2016;Thomson & Hasher, 2017).…”