Abstract
Early research on the referential process (RP) focused on the function of connecting words and the entities to which they refer, as a trait, a dimension on which people differed in a relatively stable manner. The first study found a correspondence between retrieval time for a small set of color names, hand movements accompanying speech, and features of language content and style, such as use of particular pronouns and direct quotes. The second study supported these results using an early version of the Referential Activity (RA) scales, as well as a task of generating labels for subtly differing stimuli where labels had not been provided. Another study provided a close examination of the relation of hand and body movements to the functions of the RP. The current forms of the RA scales, Concreteness, Specificity, Clarity, and Imagery, which serve as the basis for the computerized measures of the Symbolizing function, were developed based on those early studies. Recent research on the RP, some of which will be presented in this issue, has focused primarily on the Symbolizing function as a state rather than trait dimension, and has examined factors affecting variation in this function. The early research also serves as a basis for empirical study of the other functions of the RP. Through interactive development of measures and theory, in experimental and clinical settings, the constructs of the multiple code theory and the RP continue to be refined and redefined.
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Notes
The stimuli were the first two cards of the Stroop Color-Word test (1935): a word-reading card containing color names printed in black ink, and a color-naming card containing colored asterisk strings equivalent in length to the color names of the first card. We note that the use of the Stroop test has generally focused on the third card, the interference task, where the color to be named conflicts with the printed word, so that two competing responses may be activated; this third card was not used in this study.
This procedure of the monologue developed by Gottschalk and Gleser (1969) has been used as a therapy analogue.
The subsample was chosen from the group of rapid naming (high referential) participants, who had shown significantly greater use of hand movements integrated with the flow of speech as identified by Bucci & Freedman (1978), to increase the possibility of observing this process in this exploratory study.
Cited by Harold Bloom (1980) “The Poems of Our Climate”, p. 296.
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Bucci, W. Development and validation of measures of referential activity. J Psycholinguist Res 50, 17–27 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-021-09760-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10936-021-09760-9