Summary
Three experiments were carried out in which strings of 15 syllables were presented to native German speakers. Each S heard the same string 25 times. In Exp. I, the strings were nonsense stems with no structure, morphological structure, or morphological and syntactic structure characteristic of the English language. In Exp. II, the strings were either a random list of English words or a meaningful sentence. In Exp. III, the strings were either a random list of German words or a meaningful sentence. In all the experiments, the strings were either monotone or intonated. The results of Exp. I confirmed the finding of O'Connell, Turner, and Onuska (1968) that linguistic structure facilitates recall. Facilitation was limited to intonated versions and localized at the high structure level (morphology and syntax). The remaining experiments indicated that, in strings of actual lexical items, the relative facilitative influence of intonation and structure depends on the redundance of the linguistic cues. In all experiments, the rate of speech production by Ss approached that of spontaneous speech as a function of both structure and intonation in the stimulus string.
Zusammenfassung
In 3 Experimenten wurden deutschsprachigen Vpn Ketten aus 15 Silben dargeboten. Jede Vp hörte dieselbe Kette 25mal. Die Ketten im ersten Experiment bestanden entweder aus sinnlosen Silben ohne jede Struktur, mit morphologischer Struktur oder mit morphologischer und syntaktischer Struktur. Alle Strukturmerkmale wurden der englischen Sprache entnommen. Die Ketten im zweiten Experiment stellten entweder eine Zufallsliste englischer Wörter oder einen sinnvollen Satz dar. Im dritten Experiment wurde eine Zufallsliste aus deutschen Wörtern oder ein sinnvoller Satz verwendet. In allen Experimenten wurden die Ketten entweder monoton oder intoniert dargeboten. Die Ergebnisse des ersten Experiments bestätigten den Befund von O'Connell, Turner, und Onuska (1968), daß die sprachliche Struktur zu einer Verbesserung der Wiedergabe führt. Diese Verbesserung trat nur bei der intonierten und hochstrukturierten Bedingung (Morphologie und Syntax) auf. Die übrigen Experimente zeigten, daß der Verbesserungseffekt von Intonation und Struktur in den Wortketten und Sätzen von den sprachlichen Cues abhängig ist. In allen Experimenten näherte sich die Sprechgeschwindigkeit der Vpn der Geschwindigkeit der spontanen Sprache als Funktion der Struktur und Intonation der Stimuluskette.
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The research reported in the following article has been supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Bad Godesberg, Germany, and by the Psychological Institute of the Free University of Berlin. It was made possible by the generosity of Saint Louis University in granting the author a leave of absence for purposes of research. The assistance of Miss Sabine Kowal is gratefully acknowledged.
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O'Connell, D.C. Nonsense strings, words, and sentences: Some cross-linguistic comparisons. Psychol. Forsch. 33, 37–49 (1969). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00424615
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00424615