Date: Tue, 16 Dec 1997 01:01:18 -0600
From: Nick Ellinger <ellingnd@ctrvax.Vanderbilt.Edu>
To: EDEBATE@LIST.UVM.EDU
Subject: Ans. Korcok w/ evidence
Well, I guess it was put up or shut up time. I put up.
(Korcok's ev. snipped)
Michael Miroslav Korcok wrote:
>
> yep, Vandy seems to have abandoned standards ...
19th ranking in the nation, with a "more selective" admissions process,
according to US News and World Report.
> assertion after assertion with Parli debater lack of respect for
> evidence. one way that debate is valuable is that it teaches that we
> should base our conclusions on EVIDENCE rather than IDEOLOGY.
I've always found lack of respect for evidence comes from misuse, rather
than non-use of it.
> 1) you have studied Japanese so you know why Chinese kids have more
> working memory capacity for numbers? when did you fall off the reality
> bus? here are 2 pieces of EVIDENCE:
There are factors other than reading speed in memory retention between
languages
Chincotta & Underwood, in '97
"We had considered the possibility that a faster reading time for digit
words relative to numerals in English would predict a larger memory span
for the former. However, the results indicated that numeral span was
larger than digit word span and the absence of a qualifying interaction
between the factors indicated an equivalent relationship between
languages. Therefore, although reading time predicted larger digit spans
in Spanish compared to English it did not predict the within-language
relationship between numerals and digit words for either language. These
findings indicated the involvement of factors
other than naming speed and phonological rehearsal in digit span."
Chinese interpretate words different due to the structure of their
language, so the comparasion cannot be made to English
Carpenter, Miyake, & Just, in 1995
"For example, English listeners are highly influenced by word order, but
Hungarian listeners rely heavily on inflectional markers. A comparable
study of Chinese, which has little inflectional morphology, indicates
that, rather than relying on one dominant cue, Chinese listeners use a
variety of
cues in complex configurations. For example, cues in Chinese are ordered
from strongest to weakest as follows: passive marker (bei) > animate
noun > word order > object marker (ba) > indefinite marker (yi) (Li et
al 1993). The fact that the ordering interweaves several types of cues,
morphosyntactic, syntactic, and semantic, is also consistent with the
claim that such cues interact to determine interpretation."
> 2) "You are distorting the relationship between speed and memory. The
> increased speed has no relation to retention."
>
> spunky undergraduate though you may be, you are not qualified to so
> conclude. the PhD cognitive psychologists who have spent decades
> studying the matter say you're making shit up. thus:
TURN: Faster speech distorts listeners understanding. Poch (1992) and
Letowski and Poch (1995 & 1996) found that increasing the rate of speed
caused increasingly poorer speech understanding scores from all age
groups.
<snip; a little bit off the top>
> 5) "The reason the researchers say they can't prove causation is
> because THEY CAN'T PROVE CAUSATION."
>
> PLEASE. you have read exactly ZERO of the literature besides what i
> posted. NADA. ZILCH. please stop making claims about it as if you had
> ANY clue.
>
> the researchers think it is a simple causal relationship: no isolated
> intervening variables, speech rate as a covariant abolishes working
> memory differences, the theory makes it a causal relationship, etc. etc.
>
> they have been unable to establish clean causality because they were
> unable to train subjects to speak faster.
Although rate of speech is correlated with memory, THERE IS NO CAUSAL
RELATIONSHIP
Smyth & Scholey, in 1996
"The analyses above suggest that articulation rate does not make a
specific contribution to any spatial memory task, although it is
correlated with all of them. Using another visuospatial task as a
predictor in these analyses does not alter this picture. It is unlikely
that any of these tasks has a particular relationship with articulation
rate which causes all the correlations between articulation rate and
spatial and pattern tasks."
Corelation ignores other factors which disprove causation
Smyth & Scholey, in 1996
"While repeating the finding that articulation rate and verbal memory
span are correlated in children, Cowan et al. (1994) have argued that
the connection between articulation rate and verbal memory span is not
causal. As the time available for covert rehearsal during immediate
verbal span recall is much less than that required to repeat the memory
set, it is unlikely that only covert rehearsal is involved in individual
differences in memory span. Rather, they suggest that a combination of
several relevant processes such as item identification, memory search,
planning responses and/or covert rehearsal may all be accomplished more
quickly by subjects with higher spans."
> 6) Where was the "reverse causation test?" Are we to except you "NONE"
> sentence as the test? Pardon me, but I will pass for some scientific
> research on this one."
>
> NO evidence says you can improve working memory except by speaking
> faster. one way to show me wrong is PRODUCE EVIDENCE that you CAN
> improve working memory capacity in some other way. go to the LIBRARY
> and find it.
Long-term memory enhancement is an independent contributer to working
memory capacity
Chincotta & Underwood, in '97
"Cowan, Day, Saults, Keller, Johnson & Flores (1992) have argued that
word length effects may be largely accounted for by output delays rather
than subvocal rehearsal. In addition, other findings have suggested an
independent contribution of non-temporal factors such as long-term
memory to working memory capacity (Hulme, Maughan & Brown, 1991; Hulme,
Roodenrys, Brown & Mercer, 1995)."
Factors others than speech rate clearly affect memory retention
Chincotta & Underwood, in '97
"Measuring the effect of articulatory suppression on memory capacity for
numerals and digit words allowed examination of two separate issues
related to working memory interpretations of the bilingual digit span
effect. First, articulatory suppression prevents the transformation of
visual material into a phonological code through the occupation of the
phonological loop. Therefore memory span is necessarily mediated by
factors other than phonological loop functioning. Memory spans under
articulatory suppression would, therefore, provide an indication of
factors other than subvocal speech rate that influence bilingual memory
span."
By testing biligual pattern as advocated in Korcok's #1, there are other
factors than speech speed.
Chincotta & Underwood, in '97
"The present results, therefore, suggested that speech rate is not the
only determining factor in bilingual memory span as may have been
predicted on the basis of phonological loop functioning and raised
questions concerning a simple working memory explanation of the
bilingual digit span effect. Instead, the view that nontemporal factors
contribute to memory span capacity (e.g. Hulme et al., 1991, 1995;
Brandimonte, Hitch & Bishop, 1992) was supported."
> do some research,
> michael korcok
I am sorry for the dearth of evidence contained here. This is all I
could find after our library close in one hour.
Still, it takes out the internal causation links and casts serious doubt
on the theory that taught speech leads to greater understanding. It
also questions the impact on the listener, not just the speaker.
Finally, it substantiates the control argument I made in my first post.
Also, did you find that piece of evidence that shows that TAUGHT speed
speech rather than just a naturally zippy tongue causes this impact?
Did some research,
Nick Ellinger
Works Cited
Carpenter, P., Miyake, A., & Just, M. (1995). Language comprehension:
Sentence and discourse processing, Annual Review of Psychology, 46,
1995, pg. 91.
Chincotta, D., & Underwood, G. (1997). Bilingual memory span advantage
for Arabic numerals over digit words, British Journal of Psychology, 88,
May, pg. 295+.
Letowski, T., & Poch, N. E. (1995). Understanding of timecompressed
speech by older adults. Journal of the American Academy of Audiology, 6,
433-439.
Letowski, T., & Poch, N. E. (1996). Comprehension of time-compressed
speech: Effects of age and speech complexity. Journal of the American
Academy of Audiology, 7, 447-457.
Poch, N. E. (1992). Effects of discard intervals and compression
frequency on comprehension of CD in time-compressed speech. Paper
presented at the 124th meeting of The Acoustical Society of America,
New Orleans.
Smyth, M., & Scholey, K. (1996). The relationship between articulation
time
and memory performance in verbal and visuospatial tasks, British Journal
of Psychology, 87, May, pg. 179+.
|
