Linguistic Signatures of Cognitive Processes during Writing

Laura K. Allen, Cecile Perret, Danielle S. McNamara

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

6 Scopus citations

Abstract

The relationship between working memory capacity and writing ability was examined via a linguistic analysis of student essays. Undergraduate students (n = 108) wrote timed, prompt-based essays and completed a battery of cognitive assessments. The surface- and discourse-level linguistic features of students' essays were then analyzed using natural language processing tools. The results indicated that WM capacity was related to surface-level, but not discourse-level features of student essays. Additionally, the results suggest that these relationships were attenuated for students with high inferencing skills, as opposed to those with lower inferencing skills.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016
EditorsAnna Papafragou, Daniel Grodner, Daniel Mirman, John C. Trueswell
PublisherThe Cognitive Science Society
Pages2483-2488
Number of pages6
ISBN (Electronic)9780991196739
StatePublished - 2016
Externally publishedYes
Event38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016 - Philadelphia, United States
Duration: Aug 10 2016Aug 13 2016

Publication series

NameProceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016

Conference

Conference38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society: Recognizing and Representing Events, CogSci 2016
Country/TerritoryUnited States
CityPhiladelphia
Period8/10/168/13/16

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This research was supported in part by the Institute for Educational Sciences, US Department of Education, through Grant R305A120707. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the IES.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2016. All rights reserved.

Keywords

  • computational linguistics
  • natural language processing
  • strategies
  • working memory
  • writing

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