journal of verbal learning and verbal behavior volume 19 issue 5 1980 [doi...

8/10/2019 Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior Volume 19 Issue 5 1980 [Doi 10.1016%2Fs0022-5371%2880%2990628-3] Maria L. Slowiaczek; Charles Cli

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JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIOR 19, 573--582 (1980)

Subvocalization and Reading for eaning

MARIA L SLOWIACZEK AND CHARLES CLIFTON, JR.

University of assachusetts

Two experiments demonstrated that subvocalization is of value in reading for certain

types of meaning. Blocking subvocalization by requiring subjects to count or say cola-

c o l ac o l a. . . aloud impaired their reading comprehension but generally not their listening

compre hension. The effect of blocking subvocalization was found to be specific to test s that

required integration of concepts within or across sentences, as con trasted with tests that

required only memo ry of individual word concepts . Two hypo these s were offered: first, that

subvocalization results in a more durable memory representation needed for integration of

concep ts; and second, that subvocalization enables a prosodic restructuring that makes infor-

mation needed for sent ence comprehensi on accessible.

The subjective experience of hearing a

voice inside one s head while reading seems

nearly universal. This inner voice is com-

monly accompanied by act ivi ty of the

larynx and the articulators (McGuigan,

1970). Early researchers used innovative

methods to prevent this covert articulation

in the hopes of discovering its function.

Subjects were asked to sing, whistle, count,

and talk while reading to prevent sub-

vocalization (Pintner, 1913; Reed, 1916;

Secor, 1900). Despite these creative efforts,

the function of subvocal speech in reading

remains a puzzle.

One possible function involves lexical

access. Perhaps strings of printed letters

are translated to sounds before they are

recognized as words. Although there is still

some dispute over the importance of such

sound translations (cf. Coltheart, 1979), we

This research followed up experiments presented in

a Masters thesis by the first author. She would like to

thank her committee chairman, Arnold Well, and the

other members o f her committee for their advice and

assistance. The authors thank Betty Ann Levy for

providing the materials used in her experimen ts, Dawn

Piccolomini and Janet Dohert y for preparing materials

and running subjects, and Rachel Clifton, Alexander

Pollatsek, and Keith Rayner for their comments on an

earlier version of this paper. Requests for reprints

should be sent to Maria L. Slowiaczek, Department of

Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,

Mass. 01003.

573

know that direct visual access must be pos-

sible since we can distinguish between

homophones and recognize words with ir-

regular spellings. Also, lexical access

through sound translation must be possible

since we can recognize words we have

heard but never seen before by sounding

them out. Even though we can use both ac-

cess routes, the bulk of the evidence indi-

cates tha t the direct visual route is generally

faster and therefore relied on more often.

A second possible function for sub-

vocalization involves the comprehension of

entire phrases and sentences. Once words

are recognized, further syntact ic and

semantic processing is necessa ry in order to

understand the meaning of a sentence.

Subvocalization may play some role in in-

tegrating words into syntactic relations, or

in providing a representation tha t facilitates

semantic integration. One possibility is that

recoding a sentence by subvocalization

facilitates keeping it in memory. This hy-

pothesis is supported by research which in-

dicates that visually presented materials are

commonly held in a phonological repre-

sentation (Conrad, 1972). Kleiman (1975)

found that a digit shadowing task, assumed

to block subvocalization, interfered with

judging the acceptabili ty of sentences

which subjects read. He suggested that

sentence acceptability judgments require a

0022-5371/80/050573-10502.00/0


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574

SLOWI CZEK ND CLIFTON

subject to maintain a sentence in memory,

and that preventing speech recoding im-

pairs memory for a sentence.

Further evidence for this memory hy-

pothesis has been provided in a series of

experiments on reading stories while sup-

pressing subvocalization (Levy, 1977,

1978). Levy (1977) used counting out loud

as a technique to suppress subvocalization.

She found that suppressing subvocalization

interfered when subjects were asked to rec-

ognize sentences which they had read, but

had no effect on recognition of sentences

which they had heard. In a further study,

Levy (1978) found that subjects could read

stories and make paraphrase judgments

without interference from speech suppres-

sion, but when they were required to rec-

ognize verbatim sentences, counting sup-

pression did interfere. Levy concluded that

reading for meaning was possible without

subvocalization, and that the purpose of

subvocalization was to translate visual in-

formation into a speech code in order to

maintain it in verbal form.

Although Levy found accurate under-

standing of simple sentences even when

subvocalization was suppressed, her results

do not provide conclusive evidence that

subvocalization is unnecessary for com-

prehension . Hardyck and Pet r inovich

(1970) found that reading comprehension of

difficult, but not easy, passages was im-

paired when they suppressed subvocaliza-

tion using biofeedback from monitoring of

laryngeal activity. Levy's reading task may

be classified as very simple, since para-

phrase judgments could be made by knowing

the meanings of the individual words alone.

Her dist ractor tests introduced new,

semantically novel, words; for example, the

story sentence The stronger team beat the

weak opponents was tested with the dis-

tractor The stronger team cheered the

weak amateurs , where neither che ere d

nor ama teu rs nor any synonym of them

appeared in the story. Sentence compre-

hension normally involves more extensive

processing, where grammatical relations

in a sentence provide critical information

for understanding. Perhaps subvocalization

is necessary when these higher level pro-

cesses are needed for comprehension.

In two experiments, Slowiaczek (Note 1)

replicated Levy's (1978) experiment and

obtained results consis tent with hers: Sup-

pressing subvocalization interfered more

with verbatim recognition judgments than

with meaning judgment s. In these experi-

ments, correct test sentences were con-

structed by substituting synonyms in story

sentences, while their distractor tests intro-

duced semantically novel words. In a third

experiment, Slowiaczek (Note 1) studied

meaning judgments in a task where some

distractor items did not introduce novel

words, but rather replaced one character or

event in the test sentence with another

character or event from the story. Suppress-

ing subvocal speech hurt performance sub-

stantially in this more difficult reading task.

The experiments we report here further

investigate the finding that blocking sub-

vocalization can interfere with reading for

meaning. They focus on the hypothesis that

subvocalization is not needed to identify

the concepts mentioned in a passage, but

rather it s used to combine concepts in the

proper semantic relationships with each

other. In Experiment ~1, we compared per-

formance on test items which simply re-

quired recognition of lexical concepts (noun

paraphrase and verb paraphrase tests) with

performance on test items that required

combining concepts within and across sen-

tences (crossover and inference tests). We

introduced a control for nonspecific inter-

ference by including conditions in which

subjects heard, rather than read, the pas-

sages. We assumed that subvocalization is

not necessary for successful listening com-

prehension (cf. Levy, 1977), but that other

sources of comprehension difficulty are

similar for reading and listening. Unde r this

assumption, the integration hypothesis pre-

dicts that suppressing subvocalization will

disrupt reading comprehension more than

listening comprehension for inference and


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76 S L O W l C Z E K N D C L IF T O N

while the sentence Th e older children

chee red the sad childr en was present ed as

the crossover distractor. Inference test

sentences combined information from two

sentences that had occurred in the story,

separated by at least one intervening sen-

tence. To continue our example, the story

contained a third sentence that established

two alternative ways of referring to one

characte r, Th e amateur juggler was a high

school tea cher . The correct inference test

sentence combined this sentence with the

earlier sentence, resulting in Th e amateur

juggler chee red the sad chi ldre n. Dis-

tractor inference tests made the wrong

inference by referring to a different char-

acter in the story: Th e painted clown

cheer ed the sad child ren. Notice that in-

ference distractor tests were not con-

tradicted by a single story sentence, while

the crossover distractor tests were. (The

high school teacher could have been the

painted clown, but the high school teacher

could not have been the older children.)

Thus comprehension of inference test sen-

tences required combining concepts across

two sentences, while comprehending cross-

over tests required combining concepts

within a single sentence.

Design and procedure Thirty-two sub-

jects read the stories and thirty-two sub-

jects listened to them over headphones.

Sixteen of the subjects in the reading con-

dition wore headphones to control for the

muffling effect of the headphones on the

sound of counting. Stories were presented

in the same random order for all subjects in

both reading and listening conditions, but

the type of test item was counterbalanced

across subjects. Half of the stories were

presen ted while subjects were counting and

half were present ed while subjects were si-

lent and free to subvocalize. All test types

were pres ented equally often for each story

in both silent and counting conditions, for

both listening and reading. Each subject

was presented with an equal number of

each test type in silent and counting condi-

tions.

The stories wer e prese nted in nine blocks

of eight passages each. One test sentence

was presented after each story with an

equal number of each test type in each

block. The first block was for practice and

was not included in the data analysis.

Blocks alternated between silent and

counting conditions and subjects were told

at the beginning of each block whether or

not they should count.

In the silent reading condition, subjects

read silently to themselves. In the suppressed

reading condition, they counted out loud

from 1 to 10 repe atedly as they read. They

were encouraged to count at a very rapid

rate as loudly as they could. The count-

ing was monitored ove r an intercom system

to insure that the fast rate was maintained.

Most subjects were able to count from 1 to

10 twice between the onset of one sentence

and the onset of the next.

The sen tences were presen ted on a

Hewlett-Packard 2600A video terminal.

Each sentence remained on the screen for 2

seconds, with an interval of approximately

670 milliseconds (including some 170 mil-

liseconds to write the next sentence on the

video screen and then move it into a win-

dow through which the subject could see

the screen) between sentences. The screen

was 2 feet away from the subject and sen-

tences were written in block letters 2.5 by 6

mm. At the end of each story, the word

Te s t appeared on the screen for 1 second

before the test item was presented.

For the listening condition, stories and

tests were prerecorded and presented on

two computer- controlled tape recorde rs at

the rate of one sentence every 2 seconds.

The word Te s t appeared visually on the

video screen for 1 second after each story

before the auditory test sentence was pre-

sented.

For both reading and listening condi-

tions, subjects were instructed to stop

counting on the suppressed blocks when

the word Te s t appeared. Subjects were

told to respond y es by pushing one but-

ton if the sentence was true based on what

they read or heard in the story, and to re-

spond no by pushing another button.


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S U B V O C A L I Z A T I O N A N D R E A D I N G

77

Responses were recorded by the computer,

and subjects were given feedback on the

video screen after each response. At the

end of each block the total number of errors

for that block was presented on the video

screen.

Results andDiscussion

Accuracy scores were calcu la ted as

p Hit) - p False Alarm). A preliminary

analysis showed a larger suppression effect

for subjects who read without headphones

mean difference = .29) than for subjects

who read with headph ones mean differ-

ence = . 12), F 1,30) = 11.07, p < .002. This

difference was nearly constant for all types

of test sentences, which suggests that the

headphones reduced some general interfer-

ence caused by hearing oneself count .

Since none of the interactions involving

headphones were signif icant , the two

reading groups were combined for further

analysis.

Table 2 presents the accur acy data. They

were analyzed by combining the two

paraphrase tests and comparing them in a

planned contrast to the combined inference

and crossover tests. As expected, the sup-

pression effect was greater in the reading

condition than in the listening condition for

the inference and cr oss over tests, while this

difference was less for the paraphrase tests,

F 1,62) = 3.89, p < .05. The diffe rence

between the reading effect and the listening

suppression effect for the inference and

crossover tests, which required combining

concepts within and across sentences, was

.21. The difference was only .02 for the

paraphrase tests, which required only rec-

ognition of individual concepts.

This difference in suppression for reading

and listening suggests that the suppression

task interferes with some process which is

specifically needed in reading. Notice that

interference from suppression does not

simply reflect general capacity limitations.

Performance in the silent conditions for

reading and listening is comparable, which

suggests that the reading and listening tasks

are equally difficult. Also, crossover and

paraphrase noun tests appear equally dif-

ficult based on scores in the silent condi-

tions, but crossover tests show a suppres-

sion effect for reading and paraphrase noun

tests do not.

The suppression effect was assessed sep-

arately for each type of test item, using an

error term from an overall analysis of vari-

ance

df

= 186, critical difference forp .05)

= .13). Bo th the inference and the cross-

over tests showed significant suppression

effects in the reading condition, while the

paraphrase noun tests did not. None of

these types of tests showed significant sup-

pression effects in the listening condition.

Howe ver, the s uppression effect for

paraphrase verb tests was significant in

both the reading and the listeninz conditions.

T A B L E 2

p HIT ) - p F A ) FOR EXPERIMENT 1 a

T e s t t y p e

P a r a p h r a s e P a r a p h r a s e

n o u n v e r b C r o s s o v e r I n f e re n c e

R e a d i n g

Sile nt .59 .68 .63 .44

Su pp re ss ed .50 .45 .36 .21

Dif fe ren ce .09 .23 .27 .23

L i s t e n i n g

Silen t .66 .71 .67 .47

Su pp re ss ed .56 .52 .65 .41

Dif fe ren ce .10 .19 .02 .06

F A , f a l s e a l a r m .


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7 8 S L O W l A C Z E K A N D C L I F T O N

While we have no good basis for support-

ing a particular explanation of this result,

we acknowledge several possibilities. Com-

prehending verbs may require some pro-

cess other than subvocalization that is dis-

rupted by counting from 1 to 10. Alter-

natively, subvocalization may be required

to understand the relations expressed by

verbs for listening as well as reading. Fi-

nally, this result might be due to some pe-

culiar property of the synonym and dis-

tractor verbs which we used in the tests.

We can say, though, that the significant

suppression obtained on verb tests is not

due to their overall level of difficulty. Per-

formance on the verb tests in the silent

condition was comparable to performance

on the crossover tests, where a suppression

effect was found only in the reading condi-

tion. Further, we can note that Experiment

1 supported the hypothesis that the effects

of suppressing subvocal speech are specific

to inference and crossover tests in the

reading condition, even when the data from

the verb tests are discarded. The triple in-

teraction among suppression, modality, and

type of test remained nearly significant,

F(1,62) = 3.57, p = .06.

The second experiment to be reported

was designed to investigate this critical in-

teraction further. It differed from the earlier

experiment in that it used only a few long

stories, rather than many very short ones,

in an attempt to engage the reader's or lis-

tener's interest and to encourage normal

sentence comprehension strategies. It also

introduced a new type of inference test

which required subjects to combine infor-

mation that they had read with extraex-

perimental information.

Finally, the experiment used a different

speech suppression task, rapid repetition of

col ac ola col ac ola ... , rather than count-

ing to 10. We made this change to test the

generality of the speech suppression effect

and to eliminate some o f the problems with

the counting task. An ideal speech suppres-

sion task would occupy the speech ar-

ticulators continuously, but introduce no

memory or decision-making requirements.

The counting-to-10 task seemed to require

that a decision to begin counting again be

made after each cycle through the digits,

and subjects had to be monitored very

closely to prevent their pausing at the end

of each cycle. The col ac ola col a.. . task

did not require periodic decisions to resume

the chant, and subjects showed no ten-

dency to pause at regular intervals.

EXPERIMENT 2

M et hod

Subjects Forty-eight undergraduate vol-

unteers served as subjects for experimental

course credit.

Materials and design

Four long stories

were constructed with approximately 70

sentences in each story. Test sentences

were constructed to interrupt the stories

after four to seven sentences had been

presented.

An example of a section from one story

with the test items is presented in Table 3.

Three types of test sentences were con-

structed with a correct and distractor sen-

tence for each type: paraphrase tests,

transitive inferences, and elaborative infer-

ences. Paraphrase tests were the same as

paraphrase noun tests in Experiment 1, and

the transitive inferences were the same as

the inference tests in Experiment 1.

Elaborative inference tests required some

integration of world knowledge with sen-

tences in the story in order to determine

whether or not they were true. In the

example story the correc t elaborative infer-

ence requires some understanding of the

girl's motivation for drinking coffee ( She

drank coffee to stay out at the cof-

feeh ouse ). In the s tory, this is not explic-

itly stated. However, the story does pro-

vide information which makes this infer-

ence possible ( She did find a coffeehouse

with live entert ainment, He r first week-

day evenings were flooded with coffee ).

Each subject was tested on all four

stories, one auditory silent, one auditory

suppressed, one visual silent, and one vi-

sual suppressed. Twelve subjects received

each s tory in each condition. Only one type


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SUBVOCALIZATION AND READING

TABLE 3

EXAMPLE OF MATERIALS USED IN EXPERIMENT 2

579

The city girl planned to start graduate school

She moved to the college town in early August

The town was smaller than she expected

She met a woman in line at the bank

The local girl was very outgoing

She talked about gardening and zucchini pie

The outgoing woman suggested a rendezvous

The graduate student appreciated the invitation

Test

The local girl suggested a rendezvous. (Transitive infe ren ce- ye s)

The city girl suggested a rendezvous. (Transitive infere nce -no )

The new graduate student had trouble adjusting

She came from New York which buzzed with excitement

This town se emed to close by 10:00 every evening

She did find a coffe ehouse with live entertainment

The first weekday evenings were flooded with coffee

Test

She drank coffee to stay out at the coffeehouse. (Elaborative inference-yes)

She drank coffee to stay awake while studying. (Elaborative inference-no)

The first month was busy with fixing the apartment

She bicycled daily to a nearby fabric store

She needed some prints to brighten the living room

But making a choice seemed nearly impossible

Test

She bicycled daily to a nearby material store. (P ara ph ras e-y es)

She bicycled daily to a nearby furniture store. (Paraphrase-no)

o f t e s t i te m a p p e a r e d i n e a c h t e s t p o s i t i o n ,

t h o u g h i t w a s p r e s e n t e d w i t h b o t h c o r r e c t

a n d d i s t r a c t o r t e s t s i n al l c o n d i t i o n s a c r o s s

s u b j e c t s . E a c h s t o r y c o n t a i n e d t h r e e o f

e a c h o f t h e s ix t y p e s o f t e s t i t e m s .

Procedure T h e v i s u a l / a u d i t o r y a n d

s i l e n t / s u p p r e s se d c o n d i t i o n s w e r e b a l a n c e d

a c r o s s s u b j e c t s . A l l s u b j e c t s w o r e h e a d -

p h o n e s t h r o u g h o u t t h e e x p e r i m e n t .

I n t h e r e a d i n g c o n d i t i o n , s e n t e n c e s w e r e

p r e s e n t e d o n a v id e o t e r m i n a l c o n t ro l l e d b y

a P D P 8 c o m p u t e r , a t th e r a t e o f o n e s e n -

t e n c e e v e r y 2 s e c o n d s . T h e s c r e e n w a s 7 0

c m a w a y f r o m t h e s u b j e c t a n d t h e l e t t e rs

w e r e w r i t te n i n b l o c k l e t te r s 4 b y 6 m m . T h e

s t o r y w a s i n t e r r u p t e d b y th e w o r d ' ~ T e s t

e v e r y f o u r t o s e v e n s e n t e n c e s , a n d a t e s t

s e n t e n c e a p p e a r e d o n th e s c r e e n .

I n t h e l i s t e n i n g c o n d i t i o n , t h e s t o r i e s

w e r e p r e s e n t e d t h e s a m e a s in E x p e r i m e n t

1. T e s t s e n t e n c e s , h o w e v e r , w e r e p r e s e n t e d

v i s u a l l y .

A l l s u b j e c t s w e r e i n s t r u c t e d t o r e p e a t t h e

w o r d C o l a o u t l o u d o v e r a n d o v e r a s f a s t

a s t h e y c o u l d in t h e s u p p r e s s e d c o n d i t i o n s .

C o l a r e p e t i t io n w a s m o n i t o r e d o v e r a n

i n t e r c o m b y th e e x p e r i m e t e r . A l l s u b j e c t s

w e r e t o ld t o r e s p o n d Y e s i f t h e s e n t e n c e

w a s t r u e b a s e d o n w h a t t h e y h e a r d o r r e a d

in th e s t o ry . F e e d b a c k w a s g i v e n o n t h e

v i d e o s c r e e n a f t e r e a c h r e s p o n s e .

Results and Discussion

A c c u r a c y d a t a a p p e a r in T a b l e 4 . T h e

s u p p r e s s i o n e f f e c t w a s h i g h ly s i g ni f i c a nt ,

F ( 1 , 4 7 ) = 3 2 . 7 5, p < . 01 , a n d p e r f o r m a n c e

w a s b e t t e r w h i l e l i s t e n i n g t h a n w h i l e r e a d -

i n g , F ( 1 , 4 7 ) = 1 5 .5 8 , p < . 01 . A l t h o u g h t h e

s u p p r e s s i o n e f f e c t d i d n o t d i f f e r s ig n i fi -

c a n t l y b e t w e e n r e a d i n g a n d l i s t e n in g ,


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580

SLOWIACZEK AND CLIFTON

TABLE 4

p HIT) -- p FA ) FOR EXPERIMENT 2 ~

Test type

Transitive Elaborative Mean

Paraphrase inference i nference inference

Reading

Silent .47 .40 .52 .46

Suppres sed .30 .10 .19 .15

Diff erence .17 .30 .33 .31

Listening

Silent .66 .60 .56 .58

Suppres sed .42 .39 .46 .42

Difference .24 .21 .10 .16

a FA, false alarm.

F(1,47) = 1.83, p < . 10, examination of the

data suggested that the suppression effect

was greater for inference tests than for

paraphrase tests after reading, but not after

listening.

In order to maximize the power of the

statistical test, the two types of inference

tests were combined and compared with the

paraphrase tests. In this comparison, the

critical interaction among reading vs lis-

tening, silent vs suppressed, and type of

test sentence was significant, F(1,47) =

4.70, p < .05. Individual cont rast s indicated

that the difference between performance in

the silent and the suppressed conditions

was greater for the inference tests after

reading than after listening, t(47) = 2.19, p

< .05, while the suppression effect did not

differ between reading and listening para-

phrase tes ts, t(47) = .96. Fur ther, the sup-

pression effect was greater for inference

tests than for paraphrase tests after reading,

t(47) = 2.20,p < .05, while the difference (in

the opposite direction) was not significant

after listening, t(47) = 1.15.

The clear conclusion from Experiment 2

is that subvocalization helps readers com-

bine separate pieces of information. Read-

ers who were prevented from subvocalizing

had difficulty in making infe rence s,

whereas listeners did not. Preventing sub-

vocalization did not specifically interfere

with reading and comprehending individual

words; the difference in performance on

paraphrase tests afer silent vs suppressed

reading was no greater than the corre-

sponding difference after listening. In fact,

the difference of. 17 between performance

in the silent and suppressed reading condi-

tions can quite safely be attributed to in-

terference from the difficult task of repeat-

ing co la co la co la . . . common to both

reading and listening, and not due to the

prevention of subvocalization during reading.

GENERAL DISCUSSION

In these experiments, reading for mean-

ing was severely impaired when subvocali-

zation was suppressed. Listening com-

prehension was also reduced by suppres-

sing subvocalization, but the effect was

much smaller. We conclude that there was

a general interference effect from the sec-

ondary task, but that the significantly

greater interference effect for reading was

due to the specific function of subvocaliza-

tion in reading.

Earlier research (Levy, 1978) has sug-

gested that subvocalization was not nec-

essary in reading for meaning. Our ex-.

periments demonstrated that although un-

derstanding individual concepts might be

possible without subvocalization, combin-

ing concepts and integrating ideas does re-

quire subvocalization. We found a large

suppression effect for recognition of sen-

tences which required comprehension of

the relations expressed in a story that was


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S U B V O C A L I Z A T I O N A N D R E A D I N G 5 8 1

read. However , a s in Levy (1978) , the re

was an ins ignif icant supp ress ion e ffec t for

r e c o g n i t io n o f s e n t e n c e s w h i c h o n l y r e -

q u i r e d r e m e m b e r i n g t h e c o n c e p t s i n t r o -

duced in the s tory .

W e o f f er t w o h y p o t h e s e s f o r h o w s u b-

v o c a l i z a t i o n c a n h e l p i n s e n t e n c e c o m -

pre he ns ion . The f ir s t, m e m or y , hypo th -

e s i s h a s b e e n a r g u e d f o r e l s e w h e r e

(Kleiman, 1975; Baddeley, 1979). This hy-

pothes is c la ims tha t subvoca l iza t ion t rans-

l a t e s a v i sua l i npu t i n to a phono log ic a l

code , and tha t the phonologica l code las t s

longe r i n w ork ing me mory tha n a v i sua l

c o d e w o u l d . S u b v o c a l i z a t i o n s u p p r e s s i o n

shou ld i n t er fe re w i th p roc e ss ing on ly w h e n

the re p re se n t a t i on o f a se n t e nc e m us t be

mainta ined in memory for a re la t ive ly long

t ime . Presumably , th i s i s the case for com-

plex sentence process ing, such as in tegra t -

ing concepts and making infe rences . S ince

spoke n spe e c h p rov ide s t r a nspa re n t c ue s

tha t eas i ly map onto a phonologica l repre -

se n t a t ion , subv oc a l i z a t i on shou ld no t be

ne e d e d fo r l is t en ing c omp re he ns io n . The

durable phonologica l code i s ava i lable even

w i thou t subvoc a l i z at i on .

The m e m ory h ypo the s i s r e l ie s on tw o a s -

sumpt ions : one , tha t phonologica l informa-

t ion c a n be ma in t a ine d in me mory longe r

t h a n v i s u a l i n f o r m a t i o n ; a n d , t w o , t h a t

m o r e e l a b o r a t e s e n t e n c e p r o c e s s i n g r e -

qu i re s more t ime , a nd the re fo re , a me mory

c ode w hic h l a st s l onge r. O ur se c ond , p ro -

sod ic s t ruc tu re , hypo the s i s doe s no t r e ly

o n t h e s e a s s u m p t i o n s . T h is h y p o t h e s i s

sugge s t s t ha t subvoc a l i z a t i on re o rga n iz e s

the v isua l input in to a representa t ion tha t

p rov ide s re a dy a c c e ss t o t he i n fo rma t ion

n e e d e d f o r s e n t e n c e p r o c e s s i n g . S p o k e n

la ngua ge ha s a n a b unda nc e o f i n fo rma t ion

ove r a nd a bove the sounds w hic h ma ke up

the individua l words . In tona t ion contours

a n d s e n t e n c e r h y t h m s p r o v i d e p a t t e r n s

which group words in to phrases and high-

l ig h t n e w a n d i m p o r t a n t i n f o r m a t i o n .

S t u d i e s i n a u d i t o r y l a n g u a g e p r o c e s s i n g

have shown tha t l i s teners use th i s informa-

t ion in se n t e nc e c ompre he ns ion (Le h i s t e ,

1973; Cutler, 1976).

In cont ras t wi th the r ich prosodic s t ruc-

ture provided in spoken language , wri t ten

l a ngua ge p rov ide s impove r i she d c ue s . I f

p rosod ic i n fo rma t ion i s use d in se n t e nc e

proc e ss ing , t he re a de r mus t f i nd some w a y

to c ompe n sa t e fo r t he l a c k o f p ros ody in

reading. This m ay be the ro le of subvoca l i -

za t ion. Through subvoca l iza t ion, the reader

can reorganize the wri t ten sentence in to a

prosodic s t ruc ture . Prosodic s t ruc tures en-

c o d e p a t te r n i n f o r m a t i o n n e c e s s a r y f o r

com plex process ing and highlight important

informat ion.

We do not deny tha t the re i s a c lose con-

ne c t ion be tw e e n subvoc a l i z a t i on a nd me m-

ory. Prosodic res t ruc tur ing may make in-

f o r m a t i o n l a st lo n g e r in m e m o r y , b y

faci l i ta t ing rehearsal . Just as subvocal iz ing

permi ts a prosodic s t ruc ture to be c rea ted ,

a prosodic s t ruc ture supports the rhythmic

dec is ions tha t must be made in voca l iz ing,

a nd p re suma bly , subvoc a l i z ing . Subvoc a l

rehearsa l can re fresh and mainta in infor-

ma t ion in me mory , a n impor t a n t func t ion

w he n a n e ndur ing me mory c ode i s ne e de d

( c f . t h e a r t i c u l a t o r y l o o p h y p o t h e s i s o f

Ba d de le y & H i t c h , 1974). H ow e ve r , t he

prosod ic s t ruc tu re hypo the s i s e mpha s i z e s

t h a t s u b v o c a l i z a t i o n f a c i l i t a t e s r e a d i n g

comprehens ion by changing the organiza-

t ion o f t he me m ory re p re se n ta t i on ra the r

than i ts durabi l i ty. This hypothesis invi tes

in t r i gu ing que s t ions a bou t se n t e nc e c om-

p r e h e n s i o n , a n d p r o v i d e s a c o m m o n

fra me w ork fo r fu r the r r e se a rc h in re a d ing

and listening.

R E F E R E N C E S

BADDELEY, A. D. W orkin g me mo ry and read ing. I n

P . A . K o l e rs , M . E . W r o l s t ad , H . B o u m a

(Eds . ) , Processing of visible language. N e w

York: Plenum, 1979.

BADDELEY, A. D., HITCH, G. Wo rking me mo ry. In

G. A. B ower (Ed. ) , The psychology of learning

and motivation.

N e w Y o r k : A c a d e m i c P r e s s ,

1974. Vol. 8.

COLTHEART, M. Lexica l access in s imple reading

t a sks . In G . U nde rw ood (Ed . ) , Strategies of in

formation processing.

London : A cademic Pre ss ,

1979.

CONRAD, R. Sp eech an d reading. In J. F. Ka van agh

I. G. Matt ingly (Eds.), Language by eye and by

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10/10

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CUTLER, A. Beyond parsing and lexical look-up. In

R. J. Wales E. Walker (Eds.), New approaches

to language mechanisms. Amsterdam: North-

Holland, 1976.

HARDYCK, C.D., t~ PETRINOVICH, L.R. Subvocal

speech and comprehension level as a function of

the difficulty level of reading material. Journal of

Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 1970, 9,

647-652.

KLEIMAN, G. i . Speech recoding in reading.

Journal

of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 1975,

24, 323-339.

LEHISTE, I. Phonetic disambiguation of syntactic am-

biguity. Glossa 1973, 7, 107-122.

LEVY, B. A. Reading: Speech and meaning processes.

Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior

1977, 16, 623-638.

LEVY, B.A. Speech processing during reading. In

A. M. Lesgold, J. W. Pellegrino, J. W. Fokkema,

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struction.

New York: Plenum, 1978.

McGuIGAN, F. J. Covert oral behavior during the si-

lent performance of language tasks. Psychological

Bulletin 1970, 74, 309-326.

PINTNER, R. Inner speech during si lent reading.

Psychological Review 1913, 20, 129-153.

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mental Psychology

1916, 1, 365-392.

SECOR, W. B. Visual reading. American Journal of

Psychology 1900, 11, 225-236.

REFERENCE NOTE

1. SLOWIACZEK, M. L.

The importance of speech

recoding in reading. Unpublished masters thesis,

University of Massachusetts, 1978.

(Received December 14, 1979)

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