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JOURNAL OF VERBAL LEARNING AND VERBAL BEHAVIOR 19, 573--582 (1980)
Subvocalization and Reading for eaning
MARIA L SLOWIACZEK AND CHARLES CLIFTON, JR.
University of assachusetts
Two experiments demonstrated that subvocalization is of value in reading for certain
types of meaning. Blocking subvocalization by requiring subjects to count or say cola-
c o l ac o l a. . . aloud impaired their reading comprehension but generally not their listening
compre hension. The effect of blocking subvocalization was found to be specific to test s that
required integration of concepts within or across sentences, as con trasted with tests that
required only memo ry of individual word concepts . Two hypo these s were offered: first, that
subvocalization results in a more durable memory representation needed for integration of
concep ts; and second, that subvocalization enables a prosodic restructuring that makes infor-
mation needed for sent ence comprehensi on accessible.
The subjective experience of hearing a
voice inside one s head while reading seems
nearly universal. This inner voice is com-
monly accompanied by act ivi ty of the
larynx and the articulators (McGuigan,
1970). Early researchers used innovative
methods to prevent this covert articulation
in the hopes of discovering its function.
Subjects were asked to sing, whistle, count,
and talk while reading to prevent sub-
vocalization (Pintner, 1913; Reed, 1916;
Secor, 1900). Despite these creative efforts,
the function of subvocal speech in reading
remains a puzzle.
One possible function involves lexical
access. Perhaps strings of printed letters
are translated to sounds before they are
recognized as words. Although there is still
some dispute over the importance of such
sound translations (cf. Coltheart, 1979), we
This research followed up experiments presented in
a Masters thesis by the first author. She would like to
thank her committee chairman, Arnold Well, and the
other members o f her committee for their advice and
assistance. The authors thank Betty Ann Levy for
providing the materials used in her experimen ts, Dawn
Piccolomini and Janet Dohert y for preparing materials
and running subjects, and Rachel Clifton, Alexander
Pollatsek, and Keith Rayner for their comments on an
earlier version of this paper. Requests for reprints
should be sent to Maria L. Slowiaczek, Department of
Psychology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst,
Mass. 01003.
573
know that direct visual access must be pos-
sible since we can distinguish between
homophones and recognize words with ir-
regular spellings. Also, lexical access
through sound translation must be possible
since we can recognize words we have
heard but never seen before by sounding
them out. Even though we can use both ac-
cess routes, the bulk of the evidence indi-
cates tha t the direct visual route is generally
faster and therefore relied on more often.
A second possible function for sub-
vocalization involves the comprehension of
entire phrases and sentences. Once words
are recognized, further syntact ic and
semantic processing is necessa ry in order to
understand the meaning of a sentence.
Subvocalization may play some role in in-
tegrating words into syntactic relations, or
in providing a representation tha t facilitates
semantic integration. One possibility is that
recoding a sentence by subvocalization
facilitates keeping it in memory. This hy-
pothesis is supported by research which in-
dicates that visually presented materials are
commonly held in a phonological repre-
sentation (Conrad, 1972). Kleiman (1975)
found that a digit shadowing task, assumed
to block subvocalization, interfered with
judging the acceptabili ty of sentences
which subjects read. He suggested that
sentence acceptability judgments require a
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574
SLOWI CZEK ND CLIFTON
subject to maintain a sentence in memory,
and that preventing speech recoding im-
pairs memory for a sentence.
Further evidence for this memory hy-
pothesis has been provided in a series of
experiments on reading stories while sup-
pressing subvocalization (Levy, 1977,
1978). Levy (1977) used counting out loud
as a technique to suppress subvocalization.
She found that suppressing subvocalization
interfered when subjects were asked to rec-
ognize sentences which they had read, but
had no effect on recognition of sentences
which they had heard. In a further study,
Levy (1978) found that subjects could read
stories and make paraphrase judgments
without interference from speech suppres-
sion, but when they were required to rec-
ognize verbatim sentences, counting sup-
pression did interfere. Levy concluded that
reading for meaning was possible without
subvocalization, and that the purpose of
subvocalization was to translate visual in-
formation into a speech code in order to
maintain it in verbal form.
Although Levy found accurate under-
standing of simple sentences even when
subvocalization was suppressed, her results
do not provide conclusive evidence that
subvocalization is unnecessary for com-
prehension . Hardyck and Pet r inovich
(1970) found that reading comprehension of
difficult, but not easy, passages was im-
paired when they suppressed subvocaliza-
tion using biofeedback from monitoring of
laryngeal activity. Levy's reading task may
be classified as very simple, since para-
phrase judgments could be made by knowing
the meanings of the individual words alone.
Her dist ractor tests introduced new,
semantically novel, words; for example, the
story sentence The stronger team beat the
weak opponents was tested with the dis-
tractor The stronger team cheered the
weak amateurs , where neither che ere d
nor ama teu rs nor any synonym of them
appeared in the story. Sentence compre-
hension normally involves more extensive
processing, where grammatical relations
in a sentence provide critical information
for understanding. Perhaps subvocalization
is necessary when these higher level pro-
cesses are needed for comprehension.
In two experiments, Slowiaczek (Note 1)
replicated Levy's (1978) experiment and
obtained results consis tent with hers: Sup-
pressing subvocalization interfered more
with verbatim recognition judgments than
with meaning judgment s. In these experi-
ments, correct test sentences were con-
structed by substituting synonyms in story
sentences, while their distractor tests intro-
duced semantically novel words. In a third
experiment, Slowiaczek (Note 1) studied
meaning judgments in a task where some
distractor items did not introduce novel
words, but rather replaced one character or
event in the test sentence with another
character or event from the story. Suppress-
ing subvocal speech hurt performance sub-
stantially in this more difficult reading task.
The experiments we report here further
investigate the finding that blocking sub-
vocalization can interfere with reading for
meaning. They focus on the hypothesis that
subvocalization is not needed to identify
the concepts mentioned in a passage, but
rather it s used to combine concepts in the
proper semantic relationships with each
other. In Experiment ~1, we compared per-
formance on test items which simply re-
quired recognition of lexical concepts (noun
paraphrase and verb paraphrase tests) with
performance on test items that required
combining concepts within and across sen-
tences (crossover and inference tests). We
introduced a control for nonspecific inter-
ference by including conditions in which
subjects heard, rather than read, the pas-
sages. We assumed that subvocalization is
not necessary for successful listening com-
prehension (cf. Levy, 1977), but that other
sources of comprehension difficulty are
similar for reading and listening. Unde r this
assumption, the integration hypothesis pre-
dicts that suppressing subvocalization will
disrupt reading comprehension more than
listening comprehension for inference and
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76 S L O W l C Z E K N D C L IF T O N
while the sentence Th e older children
chee red the sad childr en was present ed as
the crossover distractor. Inference test
sentences combined information from two
sentences that had occurred in the story,
separated by at least one intervening sen-
tence. To continue our example, the story
contained a third sentence that established
two alternative ways of referring to one
characte r, Th e amateur juggler was a high
school tea cher . The correct inference test
sentence combined this sentence with the
earlier sentence, resulting in Th e amateur
juggler chee red the sad chi ldre n. Dis-
tractor inference tests made the wrong
inference by referring to a different char-
acter in the story: Th e painted clown
cheer ed the sad child ren. Notice that in-
ference distractor tests were not con-
tradicted by a single story sentence, while
the crossover distractor tests were. (The
high school teacher could have been the
painted clown, but the high school teacher
could not have been the older children.)
Thus comprehension of inference test sen-
tences required combining concepts across
two sentences, while comprehending cross-
over tests required combining concepts
within a single sentence.
Design and procedure Thirty-two sub-
jects read the stories and thirty-two sub-
jects listened to them over headphones.
Sixteen of the subjects in the reading con-
dition wore headphones to control for the
muffling effect of the headphones on the
sound of counting. Stories were presented
in the same random order for all subjects in
both reading and listening conditions, but
the type of test item was counterbalanced
across subjects. Half of the stories were
presen ted while subjects were counting and
half were present ed while subjects were si-
lent and free to subvocalize. All test types
were pres ented equally often for each story
in both silent and counting conditions, for
both listening and reading. Each subject
was presented with an equal number of
each test type in silent and counting condi-
tions.
The stories wer e prese nted in nine blocks
of eight passages each. One test sentence
was presented after each story with an
equal number of each test type in each
block. The first block was for practice and
was not included in the data analysis.
Blocks alternated between silent and
counting conditions and subjects were told
at the beginning of each block whether or
not they should count.
In the silent reading condition, subjects
read silently to themselves. In the suppressed
reading condition, they counted out loud
from 1 to 10 repe atedly as they read. They
were encouraged to count at a very rapid
rate as loudly as they could. The count-
ing was monitored ove r an intercom system
to insure that the fast rate was maintained.
Most subjects were able to count from 1 to
10 twice between the onset of one sentence
and the onset of the next.
The sen tences were presen ted on a
Hewlett-Packard 2600A video terminal.
Each sentence remained on the screen for 2
seconds, with an interval of approximately
670 milliseconds (including some 170 mil-
liseconds to write the next sentence on the
video screen and then move it into a win-
dow through which the subject could see
the screen) between sentences. The screen
was 2 feet away from the subject and sen-
tences were written in block letters 2.5 by 6
mm. At the end of each story, the word
Te s t appeared on the screen for 1 second
before the test item was presented.
For the listening condition, stories and
tests were prerecorded and presented on
two computer- controlled tape recorde rs at
the rate of one sentence every 2 seconds.
The word Te s t appeared visually on the
video screen for 1 second after each story
before the auditory test sentence was pre-
sented.
For both reading and listening condi-
tions, subjects were instructed to stop
counting on the suppressed blocks when
the word Te s t appeared. Subjects were
told to respond y es by pushing one but-
ton if the sentence was true based on what
they read or heard in the story, and to re-
spond no by pushing another button.
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S U B V O C A L I Z A T I O N A N D R E A D I N G
77
Responses were recorded by the computer,
and subjects were given feedback on the
video screen after each response. At the
end of each block the total number of errors
for that block was presented on the video
screen.
Results andDiscussion
Accuracy scores were calcu la ted as
p Hit) - p False Alarm). A preliminary
analysis showed a larger suppression effect
for subjects who read without headphones
mean difference = .29) than for subjects
who read with headph ones mean differ-
ence = . 12), F 1,30) = 11.07, p < .002. This
difference was nearly constant for all types
of test sentences, which suggests that the
headphones reduced some general interfer-
ence caused by hearing oneself count .
Since none of the interactions involving
headphones were signif icant , the two
reading groups were combined for further
analysis.
Table 2 presents the accur acy data. They
were analyzed by combining the two
paraphrase tests and comparing them in a
planned contrast to the combined inference
and crossover tests. As expected, the sup-
pression effect was greater in the reading
condition than in the listening condition for
the inference and cr oss over tests, while this
difference was less for the paraphrase tests,
F 1,62) = 3.89, p < .05. The diffe rence
between the reading effect and the listening
suppression effect for the inference and
crossover tests, which required combining
concepts within and across sentences, was
.21. The difference was only .02 for the
paraphrase tests, which required only rec-
ognition of individual concepts.
This difference in suppression for reading
and listening suggests that the suppression
task interferes with some process which is
specifically needed in reading. Notice that
interference from suppression does not
simply reflect general capacity limitations.
Performance in the silent conditions for
reading and listening is comparable, which
suggests that the reading and listening tasks
are equally difficult. Also, crossover and
paraphrase noun tests appear equally dif-
ficult based on scores in the silent condi-
tions, but crossover tests show a suppres-
sion effect for reading and paraphrase noun
tests do not.
The suppression effect was assessed sep-
arately for each type of test item, using an
error term from an overall analysis of vari-
ance
df
= 186, critical difference forp .05)
= .13). Bo th the inference and the cross-
over tests showed significant suppression
effects in the reading condition, while the
paraphrase noun tests did not. None of
these types of tests showed significant sup-
pression effects in the listening condition.
Howe ver, the s uppression effect for
paraphrase verb tests was significant in
both the reading and the listeninz conditions.
T A B L E 2
p HIT ) - p F A ) FOR EXPERIMENT 1 a
T e s t t y p e
P a r a p h r a s e P a r a p h r a s e
n o u n v e r b C r o s s o v e r I n f e re n c e
R e a d i n g
Sile nt .59 .68 .63 .44
Su pp re ss ed .50 .45 .36 .21
Dif fe ren ce .09 .23 .27 .23
L i s t e n i n g
Silen t .66 .71 .67 .47
Su pp re ss ed .56 .52 .65 .41
Dif fe ren ce .10 .19 .02 .06
F A , f a l s e a l a r m .
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7 8 S L O W l A C Z E K A N D C L I F T O N
While we have no good basis for support-
ing a particular explanation of this result,
we acknowledge several possibilities. Com-
prehending verbs may require some pro-
cess other than subvocalization that is dis-
rupted by counting from 1 to 10. Alter-
natively, subvocalization may be required
to understand the relations expressed by
verbs for listening as well as reading. Fi-
nally, this result might be due to some pe-
culiar property of the synonym and dis-
tractor verbs which we used in the tests.
We can say, though, that the significant
suppression obtained on verb tests is not
due to their overall level of difficulty. Per-
formance on the verb tests in the silent
condition was comparable to performance
on the crossover tests, where a suppression
effect was found only in the reading condi-
tion. Further, we can note that Experiment
1 supported the hypothesis that the effects
of suppressing subvocal speech are specific
to inference and crossover tests in the
reading condition, even when the data from
the verb tests are discarded. The triple in-
teraction among suppression, modality, and
type of test remained nearly significant,
F(1,62) = 3.57, p = .06.
The second experiment to be reported
was designed to investigate this critical in-
teraction further. It differed from the earlier
experiment in that it used only a few long
stories, rather than many very short ones,
in an attempt to engage the reader's or lis-
tener's interest and to encourage normal
sentence comprehension strategies. It also
introduced a new type of inference test
which required subjects to combine infor-
mation that they had read with extraex-
perimental information.
Finally, the experiment used a different
speech suppression task, rapid repetition of
col ac ola col ac ola ... , rather than count-
ing to 10. We made this change to test the
generality of the speech suppression effect
and to eliminate some o f the problems with
the counting task. An ideal speech suppres-
sion task would occupy the speech ar-
ticulators continuously, but introduce no
memory or decision-making requirements.
The counting-to-10 task seemed to require
that a decision to begin counting again be
made after each cycle through the digits,
and subjects had to be monitored very
closely to prevent their pausing at the end
of each cycle. The col ac ola col a.. . task
did not require periodic decisions to resume
the chant, and subjects showed no ten-
dency to pause at regular intervals.
EXPERIMENT 2
M et hod
Subjects Forty-eight undergraduate vol-
unteers served as subjects for experimental
course credit.
Materials and design
Four long stories
were constructed with approximately 70
sentences in each story. Test sentences
were constructed to interrupt the stories
after four to seven sentences had been
presented.
An example of a section from one story
with the test items is presented in Table 3.
Three types of test sentences were con-
structed with a correct and distractor sen-
tence for each type: paraphrase tests,
transitive inferences, and elaborative infer-
ences. Paraphrase tests were the same as
paraphrase noun tests in Experiment 1, and
the transitive inferences were the same as
the inference tests in Experiment 1.
Elaborative inference tests required some
integration of world knowledge with sen-
tences in the story in order to determine
whether or not they were true. In the
example story the correc t elaborative infer-
ence requires some understanding of the
girl's motivation for drinking coffee ( She
drank coffee to stay out at the cof-
feeh ouse ). In the s tory, this is not explic-
itly stated. However, the story does pro-
vide information which makes this infer-
ence possible ( She did find a coffeehouse
with live entert ainment, He r first week-
day evenings were flooded with coffee ).
Each subject was tested on all four
stories, one auditory silent, one auditory
suppressed, one visual silent, and one vi-
sual suppressed. Twelve subjects received
each s tory in each condition. Only one type
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SUBVOCALIZATION AND READING
TABLE 3
EXAMPLE OF MATERIALS USED IN EXPERIMENT 2
579
The city girl planned to start graduate school
She moved to the college town in early August
The town was smaller than she expected
She met a woman in line at the bank
The local girl was very outgoing
She talked about gardening and zucchini pie
The outgoing woman suggested a rendezvous
The graduate student appreciated the invitation
Test
The local girl suggested a rendezvous. (Transitive infe ren ce- ye s)
The city girl suggested a rendezvous. (Transitive infere nce -no )
The new graduate student had trouble adjusting
She came from New York which buzzed with excitement
This town se emed to close by 10:00 every evening
She did find a coffe ehouse with live entertainment
The first weekday evenings were flooded with coffee
Test
She drank coffee to stay out at the coffeehouse. (Elaborative inference-yes)
She drank coffee to stay awake while studying. (Elaborative inference-no)
The first month was busy with fixing the apartment
She bicycled daily to a nearby fabric store
She needed some prints to brighten the living room
But making a choice seemed nearly impossible
Test
She bicycled daily to a nearby material store. (P ara ph ras e-y es)
She bicycled daily to a nearby furniture store. (Paraphrase-no)
o f t e s t i te m a p p e a r e d i n e a c h t e s t p o s i t i o n ,
t h o u g h i t w a s p r e s e n t e d w i t h b o t h c o r r e c t
a n d d i s t r a c t o r t e s t s i n al l c o n d i t i o n s a c r o s s
s u b j e c t s . E a c h s t o r y c o n t a i n e d t h r e e o f
e a c h o f t h e s ix t y p e s o f t e s t i t e m s .
Procedure T h e v i s u a l / a u d i t o r y a n d
s i l e n t / s u p p r e s se d c o n d i t i o n s w e r e b a l a n c e d
a c r o s s s u b j e c t s . A l l s u b j e c t s w o r e h e a d -
p h o n e s t h r o u g h o u t t h e e x p e r i m e n t .
I n t h e r e a d i n g c o n d i t i o n , s e n t e n c e s w e r e
p r e s e n t e d o n a v id e o t e r m i n a l c o n t ro l l e d b y
a P D P 8 c o m p u t e r , a t th e r a t e o f o n e s e n -
t e n c e e v e r y 2 s e c o n d s . T h e s c r e e n w a s 7 0
c m a w a y f r o m t h e s u b j e c t a n d t h e l e t t e rs
w e r e w r i t te n i n b l o c k l e t te r s 4 b y 6 m m . T h e
s t o r y w a s i n t e r r u p t e d b y th e w o r d ' ~ T e s t
e v e r y f o u r t o s e v e n s e n t e n c e s , a n d a t e s t
s e n t e n c e a p p e a r e d o n th e s c r e e n .
I n t h e l i s t e n i n g c o n d i t i o n , t h e s t o r i e s
w e r e p r e s e n t e d t h e s a m e a s in E x p e r i m e n t
1. T e s t s e n t e n c e s , h o w e v e r , w e r e p r e s e n t e d
v i s u a l l y .
A l l s u b j e c t s w e r e i n s t r u c t e d t o r e p e a t t h e
w o r d C o l a o u t l o u d o v e r a n d o v e r a s f a s t
a s t h e y c o u l d in t h e s u p p r e s s e d c o n d i t i o n s .
C o l a r e p e t i t io n w a s m o n i t o r e d o v e r a n
i n t e r c o m b y th e e x p e r i m e t e r . A l l s u b j e c t s
w e r e t o ld t o r e s p o n d Y e s i f t h e s e n t e n c e
w a s t r u e b a s e d o n w h a t t h e y h e a r d o r r e a d
in th e s t o ry . F e e d b a c k w a s g i v e n o n t h e
v i d e o s c r e e n a f t e r e a c h r e s p o n s e .
Results and Discussion
A c c u r a c y d a t a a p p e a r in T a b l e 4 . T h e
s u p p r e s s i o n e f f e c t w a s h i g h ly s i g ni f i c a nt ,
F ( 1 , 4 7 ) = 3 2 . 7 5, p < . 01 , a n d p e r f o r m a n c e
w a s b e t t e r w h i l e l i s t e n i n g t h a n w h i l e r e a d -
i n g , F ( 1 , 4 7 ) = 1 5 .5 8 , p < . 01 . A l t h o u g h t h e
s u p p r e s s i o n e f f e c t d i d n o t d i f f e r s ig n i fi -
c a n t l y b e t w e e n r e a d i n g a n d l i s t e n in g ,
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580
SLOWIACZEK AND CLIFTON
TABLE 4
p HIT) -- p FA ) FOR EXPERIMENT 2 ~
Test type
Transitive Elaborative Mean
Paraphrase inference i nference inference
Reading
Silent .47 .40 .52 .46
Suppres sed .30 .10 .19 .15
Diff erence .17 .30 .33 .31
Listening
Silent .66 .60 .56 .58
Suppres sed .42 .39 .46 .42
Difference .24 .21 .10 .16
a FA, false alarm.
F(1,47) = 1.83, p < . 10, examination of the
data suggested that the suppression effect
was greater for inference tests than for
paraphrase tests after reading, but not after
listening.
In order to maximize the power of the
statistical test, the two types of inference
tests were combined and compared with the
paraphrase tests. In this comparison, the
critical interaction among reading vs lis-
tening, silent vs suppressed, and type of
test sentence was significant, F(1,47) =
4.70, p < .05. Individual cont rast s indicated
that the difference between performance in
the silent and the suppressed conditions
was greater for the inference tests after
reading than after listening, t(47) = 2.19, p
< .05, while the suppression effect did not
differ between reading and listening para-
phrase tes ts, t(47) = .96. Fur ther, the sup-
pression effect was greater for inference
tests than for paraphrase tests after reading,
t(47) = 2.20,p < .05, while the difference (in
the opposite direction) was not significant
after listening, t(47) = 1.15.
The clear conclusion from Experiment 2
is that subvocalization helps readers com-
bine separate pieces of information. Read-
ers who were prevented from subvocalizing
had difficulty in making infe rence s,
whereas listeners did not. Preventing sub-
vocalization did not specifically interfere
with reading and comprehending individual
words; the difference in performance on
paraphrase tests afer silent vs suppressed
reading was no greater than the corre-
sponding difference after listening. In fact,
the difference of. 17 between performance
in the silent and suppressed reading condi-
tions can quite safely be attributed to in-
terference from the difficult task of repeat-
ing co la co la co la . . . common to both
reading and listening, and not due to the
prevention of subvocalization during reading.
GENERAL DISCUSSION
In these experiments, reading for mean-
ing was severely impaired when subvocali-
zation was suppressed. Listening com-
prehension was also reduced by suppres-
sing subvocalization, but the effect was
much smaller. We conclude that there was
a general interference effect from the sec-
ondary task, but that the significantly
greater interference effect for reading was
due to the specific function of subvocaliza-
tion in reading.
Earlier research (Levy, 1978) has sug-
gested that subvocalization was not nec-
essary in reading for meaning. Our ex-.
periments demonstrated that although un-
derstanding individual concepts might be
possible without subvocalization, combin-
ing concepts and integrating ideas does re-
quire subvocalization. We found a large
suppression effect for recognition of sen-
tences which required comprehension of
the relations expressed in a story that was
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S U B V O C A L I Z A T I O N A N D R E A D I N G 5 8 1
read. However , a s in Levy (1978) , the re
was an ins ignif icant supp ress ion e ffec t for
r e c o g n i t io n o f s e n t e n c e s w h i c h o n l y r e -
q u i r e d r e m e m b e r i n g t h e c o n c e p t s i n t r o -
duced in the s tory .
W e o f f er t w o h y p o t h e s e s f o r h o w s u b-
v o c a l i z a t i o n c a n h e l p i n s e n t e n c e c o m -
pre he ns ion . The f ir s t, m e m or y , hypo th -
e s i s h a s b e e n a r g u e d f o r e l s e w h e r e
(Kleiman, 1975; Baddeley, 1979). This hy-
pothes is c la ims tha t subvoca l iza t ion t rans-
l a t e s a v i sua l i npu t i n to a phono log ic a l
code , and tha t the phonologica l code las t s
longe r i n w ork ing me mory tha n a v i sua l
c o d e w o u l d . S u b v o c a l i z a t i o n s u p p r e s s i o n
shou ld i n t er fe re w i th p roc e ss ing on ly w h e n
the re p re se n t a t i on o f a se n t e nc e m us t be
mainta ined in memory for a re la t ive ly long
t ime . Presumably , th i s i s the case for com-
plex sentence process ing, such as in tegra t -
ing concepts and making infe rences . S ince
spoke n spe e c h p rov ide s t r a nspa re n t c ue s
tha t eas i ly map onto a phonologica l repre -
se n t a t ion , subv oc a l i z a t i on shou ld no t be
ne e d e d fo r l is t en ing c omp re he ns io n . The
durable phonologica l code i s ava i lable even
w i thou t subvoc a l i z at i on .
The m e m ory h ypo the s i s r e l ie s on tw o a s -
sumpt ions : one , tha t phonologica l informa-
t ion c a n be ma in t a ine d in me mory longe r
t h a n v i s u a l i n f o r m a t i o n ; a n d , t w o , t h a t
m o r e e l a b o r a t e s e n t e n c e p r o c e s s i n g r e -
qu i re s more t ime , a nd the re fo re , a me mory
c ode w hic h l a st s l onge r. O ur se c ond , p ro -
sod ic s t ruc tu re , hypo the s i s doe s no t r e ly
o n t h e s e a s s u m p t i o n s . T h is h y p o t h e s i s
sugge s t s t ha t subvoc a l i z a t i on re o rga n iz e s
the v isua l input in to a representa t ion tha t
p rov ide s re a dy a c c e ss t o t he i n fo rma t ion
n e e d e d f o r s e n t e n c e p r o c e s s i n g . S p o k e n
la ngua ge ha s a n a b unda nc e o f i n fo rma t ion
ove r a nd a bove the sounds w hic h ma ke up
the individua l words . In tona t ion contours
a n d s e n t e n c e r h y t h m s p r o v i d e p a t t e r n s
which group words in to phrases and high-
l ig h t n e w a n d i m p o r t a n t i n f o r m a t i o n .
S t u d i e s i n a u d i t o r y l a n g u a g e p r o c e s s i n g
have shown tha t l i s teners use th i s informa-
t ion in se n t e nc e c ompre he ns ion (Le h i s t e ,
1973; Cutler, 1976).
In cont ras t wi th the r ich prosodic s t ruc-
ture provided in spoken language , wri t ten
l a ngua ge p rov ide s impove r i she d c ue s . I f
p rosod ic i n fo rma t ion i s use d in se n t e nc e
proc e ss ing , t he re a de r mus t f i nd some w a y
to c ompe n sa t e fo r t he l a c k o f p ros ody in
reading. This m ay be the ro le of subvoca l i -
za t ion. Through subvoca l iza t ion, the reader
can reorganize the wri t ten sentence in to a
prosodic s t ruc ture . Prosodic s t ruc tures en-
c o d e p a t te r n i n f o r m a t i o n n e c e s s a r y f o r
com plex process ing and highlight important
informat ion.
We do not deny tha t the re i s a c lose con-
ne c t ion be tw e e n subvoc a l i z a t i on a nd me m-
ory. Prosodic res t ruc tur ing may make in-
f o r m a t i o n l a st lo n g e r in m e m o r y , b y
faci l i ta t ing rehearsal . Just as subvocal iz ing
permi ts a prosodic s t ruc ture to be c rea ted ,
a prosodic s t ruc ture supports the rhythmic
dec is ions tha t must be made in voca l iz ing,
a nd p re suma bly , subvoc a l i z ing . Subvoc a l
rehearsa l can re fresh and mainta in infor-
ma t ion in me mory , a n impor t a n t func t ion
w he n a n e ndur ing me mory c ode i s ne e de d
( c f . t h e a r t i c u l a t o r y l o o p h y p o t h e s i s o f
Ba d de le y & H i t c h , 1974). H ow e ve r , t he
prosod ic s t ruc tu re hypo the s i s e mpha s i z e s
t h a t s u b v o c a l i z a t i o n f a c i l i t a t e s r e a d i n g
comprehens ion by changing the organiza-
t ion o f t he me m ory re p re se n ta t i on ra the r
than i ts durabi l i ty. This hypothesis invi tes
in t r i gu ing que s t ions a bou t se n t e nc e c om-
p r e h e n s i o n , a n d p r o v i d e s a c o m m o n
fra me w ork fo r fu r the r r e se a rc h in re a d ing
and listening.
R E F E R E N C E S
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P . A . K o l e rs , M . E . W r o l s t ad , H . B o u m a
(Eds . ) , Processing of visible language. N e w
York: Plenum, 1979.
BADDELEY, A. D., HITCH, G. Wo rking me mo ry. In
G. A. B ower (Ed. ) , The psychology of learning
and motivation.
N e w Y o r k : A c a d e m i c P r e s s ,
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COLTHEART, M. Lexica l access in s imple reading
t a sks . In G . U nde rw ood (Ed . ) , Strategies of in
formation processing.
London : A cademic Pre ss ,
1979.
CONRAD, R. Sp eech an d reading. In J. F. Ka van agh
I. G. Matt ingly (Eds.), Language by eye and by
ear. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1972.
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58 SLOWIACZEK AND CLIFTON
CUTLER, A. Beyond parsing and lexical look-up. In
R. J. Wales E. Walker (Eds.), New approaches
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HARDYCK, C.D., t~ PETRINOVICH, L.R. Subvocal
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647-652.
KLEIMAN, G. i . Speech recoding in reading.
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LEHISTE, I. Phonetic disambiguation of syntactic am-
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LEVY, B. A. Reading: Speech and meaning processes.
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1977, 16, 623-638.
LEVY, B.A. Speech processing during reading. In
A. M. Lesgold, J. W. Pellegrino, J. W. Fokkema,
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struction.
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McGuIGAN, F. J. Covert oral behavior during the si-
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REFERENCE NOTE
1. SLOWIACZEK, M. L.
The importance of speech
recoding in reading. Unpublished masters thesis,
University of Massachusetts, 1978.
(Received December 14, 1979)