| Abstract |
| Forty-eight university students
differing in verbal associative productivity and audience sensitivity test scores defined
abstract and concrete nouns before an audience or in the presence of E alone. Their
definitions were scored for extralinguistic and style features of speech. The design
was based on the assumption that effects of associative productivity and stimulus
concreteness are mediated by cognitive processes, whereas effects of audience sensitivity
and audience conditions are mediated by emotional states. Latency of definitions,
word production, and filled pauses ("ahs") were related only to the two
cognitive factors. A significant interaction revealed that in the audience situation
highly audience-sensitive Ss had the highest silent-pause ratio, suggesting that this
variable was most affected by emotional arousal. Frequency of silent pauses, word
length, ratio of concrete to abstract nouns in the definitions, and evaluative ratings of
the definitions were related to both classes of independent variables. |
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