The use of shortcuts and abbreviations in everyday communications, both
online and through texts, has become increasingly popular over the past decade.
Shortcuts like ’lol’ for ’laugh out loud’ aim to provide emotional nuance and
context that would otherwise be lost in standard written communication. However,
studies have shown that there is a processing cost associated with using these
shortcuts (Perea, Acha, & Carreiras, 2009; Ganushchak, Krott, Frisson, & Meyer,
2013). Other studies have found that texting shortcuts are lexically independent
units: they are represented and stored in the brain independently of their full,
standard form (Ganushchak, Krott, & Meyer, 2010; 2012; Tat & Azuma, 2015).
The current study examines the effect of newer, more diverse shortcuts on
processing and Working Memory (WM) capacity through two experiments. It
was hypothesised that reading shortcuts would lead to an increased processing cost
and poorer recall. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that this processing cost and
poorer recall would depend on the type of shortcut. Phrasal shortcuts (e.g. ’brb’
for ’be right back’) would be more difficult to read and would lead to poorer recall
compared to contractions and clippings (e.g. ‘txt’ for ‘text’). In Experiment 1, the
processing cost of reading shortcuts was explored through a self-paced reading
task, with results supporting our hypotheses. In Experiment 2, participants read
sentences which contained memory words to be remembered for recall at the end
of a trial, with the number of correct items recalled used as a gauge of working memory capacity and processing efficiency (Service & Maury, 2014; Daneman
& Carpenter, 1980). Results were mixed, with no clear effect of the presence of
a shortcut or shortcut type modulating recall. Implications of these results are
discussed with regard to reading and the direction of language evolution. / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc) / The use of shortcuts and abbreviations in everyday communications, both online and through texts, has become increasingly popular over the past decade. Shortcuts like 'lol' for 'laugh out loud' aim to provide emotional nuance and context that would otherwise be lost in standard written communication. These shortcuts are more difficult to read than standard English, however (Perea, Acha, & Carreiras, 2009; Ganushchak, Krott, Frisson, & Meyer, 2013). The current study examines the effect of newer, more diverse shortcuts on reading and memory recall through two experiments. We hypothesise that sentences with shortcuts are more difficult to read than sentences without shortcuts, and will result in poorer recall. Results of this study are mixed; Experiment 1 indicates shortcuts to be more difficult to read, whereas Experiment 2 shows a limited effect of shortcuts on recall. This has implications on how the perception of shortcuts in everyday use may be changing.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/23457 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Rana, Fareeha |
| Contributors | Stroinska, Magda, Service, Elisabet, Cognitive Science of Language |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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