Persuasive Communication - How Audiences Decide. 2nd Edition

162 Understanding Rational Decision Making

Referential representation is aided by making referents easy to identify. Readers take less time to

identify the referent of a pronoun when the referent has been mentioned recently in the text.^179

Each sentence that comes between a pronoun and its antecedent increases the time the audience

needs to assign a referent to it.^180 Each sentence that comes between a pronoun and its antecedent

also increases the number of errors audiences make when they try to choose the correct referent.^181

The likelihood that the audience will choose the correct referent can be increased by putting the

word the in front of a repeated noun phrase.^182 It can also be increased by the use of a synonym.

When a synonym is used in one sentence to refer to an object mentioned in the prior sentence

(e.g., jet to refer to airplane ), the time the audience needs to comprehend the sentence containing

the synonym is no greater than if the same word had been used in it.^183 Repeating the referent

instead of using a pronoun can actually slow down the comprehension process in some cases.^184

For example, after reading the sentence “Bill bought a car,” readers take longer to comprehend the

sentence “Bill drove it home” than to comprehend the sentence “He drove it home.”

Repetition of Concepts Within Paragraphs

An additional aid to referential representation in particular and to comprehension in general is the

repetition of concepts within a paragraph. The number of new ideas introduced in a paragraph

creates more comprehension problems for audiences than either sentence length or word length.^185

Repeated concepts in a paragraph make it easier for readers to integrate their referential representa-

tions of the individual sentences in it into a coherent whole.^186 Repeated concepts can also decrease

the time it takes to read a text.^187 Thus, readers take longer to read sentences in paragraphs that

introduce many new concepts than to read sentences in which a few concepts reoccur repeatedly.^188

Reading rate and recall both increase if the number of new ideas in a paragraph is lowered by

including examples and paraphrases in the paragraph^189 or by restricting all the sentences in it to

the amplifi cation of just one or two main points.

Fluent Speech

Most aids to sentence comprehension are equally helpful to both readers and listeners. Other

aids, such as fl uent speech, are specifi cally helpful to listeners. Disfl uent speech impairs sentence

comprehension in a similar fashion as incorrect punctuation.^190 Fluent speech, with appropriate

intonation and pauses, on the other hand, helps listeners correctly comprehend the meaning of the

speaker’s sentences.^191

Interestingly, fi ller words, such as uh and um so often found in disfl uent speech, can sometimes

facilitate comprehension and recall because they usually signal that the speaker is about to change

topics and say something new.^192 However, listeners generally infer that speakers who use fi ller

words are less honest and less comfortable with the topic under discussion than those speakers who

can avoid them.^193

Congruent Nonverbal Behaviors

Hand gestures that are congruent with the meaning of the speaker’s message can enhance listen-

ers’ comprehension of the message.^194 For example, listeners better understand speakers’ answers to

their questions about the size and relative position of objects when speakers gesture while verbally

describing the objects.^195 Hand gestures can also aid listeners’ comprehension in a deeper, less lit-

eral way. Spontaneous hand gestures produced along with speech often signal the syntactic subject

of the speaker’s sentence, the topic the speaker is focused on, and the elements of the schema the

speaker has activated.^196