Distraction and its Effect on Reference Processes (2008)

Undergraduate: Lorelle Babwah

Faculty Advisor: Jennifer Arnold
Department: Psychology & Neuroscience

---

Discourse research has often made the distinction between "given" (previously mentioned) and "new" (not previously mentioned) items within the context of a conversation. Audience design means that speakers tailor speech to make it easier for listeners to understand. When an item is new, it can be assumed that the listener is not anticipating it and therefore the speaker compensates by making the word more acoustically prominent (i.e. higher pitch, pronounced slower). We posit that when distracted speakers will not be able to make these accommodations for their listeners and will instead be more prone to disfluencies, or speech errors.

University students were recruited as participants (n=11) to play the part of the speaker. Their task was to instruct the listener (a confederate) on how to move the objects around on a computer screen. In the distraction condition the task was interrupted by a series of beeps. Participants had to click on the corresponding number on the screen before returning to the task.

Distraction resulted in higher pitched utterances, regardless of discourse status. Previous findings regarding shortened duration of given items were replicated