Audiobooks are more popular than ever. Have you ever wondered if there are cognitive differences between reading print books and listening to audiobooks? In this editorial, psychologist Dan Willingham explains some of the research comparing the two formats. Dr. Willingham describes several research findings, most of which come from experimental designs.
Here's one point Willingham makes:
...there are differences between print and audio, notably prosody. That’s the pitch, tempo and stress of spoken words. “What a great party” can be a sincere compliment or sarcastic put-down, but they look identical on the page. Although writing lacks symbols for prosody, experienced readers infer it as they go. In one experiment, subjects listened to a recording of someone’s voice who either spoke quickly or slowly. Next, everyone silently read the same text, purportedly written by the person whose voice they had just heard. Those hearing the quick talker read the text faster than those hearing the slow talker.
a. In the study above, what is the independent variable? Was it manipulated independent groups or within groups (and what keywords in the description help you decide?)
b. What is the dependent variable?
c. Sketch a small graph of the results described, labeling your axes mindfully.
Here is another study from Willingham's summary:
It sounds as if comprehension should be easier when listening than reading, but that’s not always true. For example, one study compared how well students learned about a scientific subject from a 22-minute podcast versus a printed article. Although students spent equivalent time with each format, on a written quiz two days later the readers scored 81 percent and the listeners 59 percent.
d. In this study, what is the independent variable? Was it manipulated independent groups or within groups (and what aspects if the description helped you decide?)
e. What is the dependent variable?
f. Sketch a small graph of the results described, labeling your axes mindfully.
g. Do you think you could have conducted this study as a repeated-measures design? Why or why not?
h. What questions do you have about the internal validity of this study?
Suggested answers
a. The IV is reading speed of the narrator during the first task; its levels are Slow and Fast. The phrase, "either spoke quickly or slowly" tells you this was manipulated as independent groups.
b. The dependent variable was how fast people read the text passage.
d. Here the IV is reading a text or listening to a podcast. The results phrase refers to "readers" and "listeners," implying that the IV was manipulated as between groups (independent groups).
e. The DV is score on a comprehension quiz.
g. It might be difficult to conduct this exact study as a repeated-measures design, because people would have to process the same content aurally and via reading. Once they've processed the content once, it would undoubtedly be easier to process it a second time.
h. You'd want to be sure that i) people were randomly assigned to the two conditions. This would control for selection threats; and ii) people in the two conditions read or listened to the exact same text (for example, a podcast and its transcript). This would help avoid a design confound.
