Class
Article
Department
Communicative Disorders and Deaf Education Department
Faculty Mentor
Brittan Barker
Presentation Type
Poster Presentation
Abstract
It is well-known that people struggle to listen and comprehend spoken language in environments where multiple talkers are present. It is cognitively demanding to communicate in these difficult listening environments that occur commonly in everyday life (Plomp, 1994); therefore, one’s working memory abilities may play a role in how successful they can communicate when multiple talkers are present (Schneider et al., 2007). This preliminary study aimed to explore the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and spoken language comprehension in the context of multiple talkers. Six participants performed complex span tasks to assess their WMC abilities. Participants also listened to stories presented by a single narrator or multiple narrators, and they then performed comprehension tasks pertaining to those stories. Descriptive statistics were calculated to explore whether or not there was a common trend between WMC abilities and performance on the story comprehension tasks for each pilot participant. The preliminary data revealed a trend suggesting WMC abilities are related to individuals’ story comprehension accuracy but not latency. Presentation Time: Thursday, 3-4 p.m. Zoom link: https://usu-edu.zoom.us/j/88063585042?pwd=U0NVaHJkRTMzeTVwbERQMk81ZCtQUT09
Location
Logan, UT
Start Date
4-11-2021 12:00 AM
Included in
The Influences of Individual Differences in Working Memory Capacity and Multiple Narrators on Adults’ Story Comprehension: A Pilot Study
Logan, UT
It is well-known that people struggle to listen and comprehend spoken language in environments where multiple talkers are present. It is cognitively demanding to communicate in these difficult listening environments that occur commonly in everyday life (Plomp, 1994); therefore, one’s working memory abilities may play a role in how successful they can communicate when multiple talkers are present (Schneider et al., 2007). This preliminary study aimed to explore the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and spoken language comprehension in the context of multiple talkers. Six participants performed complex span tasks to assess their WMC abilities. Participants also listened to stories presented by a single narrator or multiple narrators, and they then performed comprehension tasks pertaining to those stories. Descriptive statistics were calculated to explore whether or not there was a common trend between WMC abilities and performance on the story comprehension tasks for each pilot participant. The preliminary data revealed a trend suggesting WMC abilities are related to individuals’ story comprehension accuracy but not latency. Presentation Time: Thursday, 3-4 p.m. Zoom link: https://usu-edu.zoom.us/j/88063585042?pwd=U0NVaHJkRTMzeTVwbERQMk81ZCtQUT09