[Cognitive load and listener orientation in monologue instruction].
Christian Stamov Roßnagel · PubMed · 1995
It was experimentally tested whether high mental workload adversely affects the listener-adaptation of speakers giving an instruction. Forty-five subjects were randomly assigned to one of three groups with either low or high mental workloads and gave instructions on the assembly of a small machine model. Speakers in the low workload condition had the model available while instructing, whereas speakers in the high workload condition had to recall the assembly without external aids. In a third group, speakers were given a secondary task while instructing. Only in the low load condition were instructions apparently adapted to the listener. High load and dual task conditions, on the other hand, yielded messages that were equivalent as to their contents, regardless of the different communicative tasks. Additional assessment of speech characteristics demonstrated the experimental manipulation of mental workload to be effective. Results suggest that decreased listener-adaptation reflects a dissociation of the communicative demands of listener-adapted speech and the cognitive resources to meet these demands.