The relationship between trained ratings and untrained listeners' judgments of global coherence in extended monologues.
Yvonne Rogalski, Sarah Key-DeLyria, Sarah Mucci and 2 others
PMID 32952260WHAT IT FOUND
For attention, low and medium samples held interest similarly; high samples held interest better.
Listeners still separated all topic coherence levels for focus and unnecessary information.
Key findings
01Untrained listeners could tell low, medium and high global coherence samples apart by judging topic maintenance and unnecessary information.
02High global coherence samples held attention and interest better than low or medium samples, but low and medium samples were rated similarly.
03Higher trained global coherence scores were associated with higher listener ratings of topic maintenance, less unnecessary information, and attention/interest.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for SLPs
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
Only 12 discourse samples were analysed, so the findings are preliminary. The 24 untrained listeners were a convenience sample aged 18 to 54, mean age 27.5 years, recruited at Ithaca College. The original speakers had mean age 68.7 years, and 8 had Parkinson's disease while 3 were non-brain injured older adults. The samples were cleaned of pauses and articulatory errors and re-recorded by a single young woman's voice, so they do not represent real speech. Low and medium global coherence samples were not distinguished by listeners for attention and interest. The study did not test treatment or real-world communication. The trained rater was a graduate student, though reliability was reported as 91.4% intra-rater and 81% inter-rater.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that a higher global coherence score means a client will be more interesting in everyday conversation. The study used cleaned, re-recorded samples and did not test treatment.