The Effect of Time-Compressed Speech on Comprehensive, Interpretive, and Short-Term Listening

Abstract

Although contemporary theorists view listening as a multidimensional process, the preponderance of published empirical research on human comprehension of speededspeech is basedon an outdated, unitary construct. In thepresent study, the impact of varying levels of time compression on three different types of listening is investigated. The results indicate that comprehensive listening performance deteriorates significantly as speech compression levels are increased while interpretive and short-term listening performance remains stable until a high degree of time compression (60%) is reached. Explanationsfor these findings are advanced based upon established differences between short-and long-term memory processes. efinitional perspectives on listening have undergone considerable transition during the past thirty years. Early scholars

Listening to Narratives: An Experimental Examination of Storytelling in the Classroom

“…This theory posits that humans have a threshold for how much information they can process, and when the accumulation of information approaches or exceeds processing capacity, processing errors result. Consistent with previous research (King & Behnke, 1989, this finding supports the value of capacity theory.…”

“…Thirty percent compression has been shown to be the minimum level of compression necessary to impact longterm (though not working) memory (King & Behnke, 1989). These rates were attained through Audacity (2007), a computer software program that can manipulate recorded speech.…”

Dynamics of Word Comprehension in Infancy: Developments in Timing, Accuracy, and Resistance to Acoustic Degradation

“…Various studies have examined the effects of manipulating speaking rates on linguistic processing in adults with normal, intact language abilities as well as in those with different types of language disorders (Blumstein, Katz, Goodglass, Shrier, & Dworetsky, 1985;Foulke, 1971;King & Behnke, 1989;Leonard, Baum, & Pell, 2000;Wingfield, 1996). Fast speaking rates have been shown to have adverse effects on processing, especially at more severe rates of compression, and in older populations in a variety of tasks investigating auditory comprehension, recall, and repetition (Dupoux & Green, 1997;Gordon-Salant & Fitzgibbons, 1999;Schmitt & Carroll, 1985;Wingfield, Tun, Koh, & Rosen, 1999).…”

Public speaking performance improvement as a function of information processing in immediate and delayed feedback interventions

“…Perhaps the absence of more illuminating findings regarding feedback can be traced to oversimplified treatment of the concept. For example, while significant distinctions are made between cognitive processes that require conscious or automatic information processing (Kahneman, 1973;Langer, 1979) or that rely on short-or long-term memory processes for performance effectiveness (King & Behnke, 1989a), such distinctions have seldom found their way into feedback research. The present study is focused on the efficacy of feedback interventions in the improvement of a subsequent speaking performance based upon timing of feedback (immediate vs. delayed) and type of feedback (automatic vs. effortful mental processes).…”