
Evidence that “disfluencies” in speech enhance comprehension - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/your-speech-is-packed-with-misunderstood-unconscious-messages
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nostrademons
I'd love to see the study broken out by people who are listening for
_confidence_ vs. _content_.

I recall showing my mom Paul Buchheit's Startup School 08 talk:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E)

I thought it was great, and I remember listening very intently to parse out
exactly what he was saying and figure out what he was saying. I showed it to
my mom, and her first reaction was "Why are you listening to him? He seems
kinda nebbishy."

Notice how many pauses, umms, y'knows, and other filler words are in that
speech. I ignored them because I already knew what he had accomplished; my
assumption was that he knew what he was talking about, and so I should pay
close attention. My mom, who knows nothing about tech and didn't start using
GMail until 2012, came away with the impression that he was unconfident,
rambling, and didn't really know what he was talking about.

The advice to eliminate filler words may be a consequence of a world where
people make snap judgments about the credibility of a person in seconds, and
usually are not qualified to judge the _content_ of the speech at all. Notice
how the article says that this advice first caught on in the 20th century,
right as mass communication and soundbite messages caught on. The studies they
cite, however, all featured listeners _from the same field as the speaker_ who
already cared about the content.

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kami8845
Thanks for posting this, can't believe it only has 10k views.

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bitshiffed
I love these disfluencies, at the right times.

Obviously there are variations on use; where cases like overuse from being
unprepared can be painful to listen to... But when obviously pausing to think
of the best way to describe something to a particular/unfamiliar audience, or
summarize a broader idea down to a specific area being discussed, I've noticed
how helpful it can be in understanding, at least for the way that /I/ listen
to people.

When I hear somebody "um", to think of the best intersection between what they
know, context, and what I know, my mind is trying to do the exact same thing,
or even beat them to it. For me, this definitely engages me more; even if I
come to the wrong conclusion, my conscious thought is saturated with putting
these pieces together. Any related information is already active, and easier
to link together. -- Compared to someone speed-reading a prepared statement,
where I may come away with some high level knowledge, but be too busy parsing
the flow of speech to contemplate many of the finer points as they come.

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mindcrime
What I find interesting are the phrases and "turns of speech" we use without
even knowing what they mean. I was day-dreaming about something last night,
and a phrase flickered through my mind, and I remember thinking "I say that
all the time, but I don't - strictly speaking - know what it means". I wish I
could remember what it was, but I've actually forgotten now.

I'm sure most of us could come up with some examples in short order though.
Here's something close: saying "dead XXX" like "dead simple". We know that
when we hear that it means something like "really simple" by why would "dead"
work there? Of course English is famous for overloading words with many
meanings, and this stuff is dead common. But I still find it interesting to
ponder the various phrases and what-not that we use.

None of which, of course, has a ton to do with the material in this article.
It was really just the title that got me thinking down this path...

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Nadya
Phrases like "dead drunk" or "dead simple" use "dead" as an adverb. That usage
dates back to the 15th century as is equivalent to "utterly, completely". A
more curious case of "What... why?" come from certain non-literal idioms.

"Raining cats and dogs", "by the skin of one's teeth", "steal someone's
thunder".

Regarding the article, I thought it was going to allude to things like
"implicit microaggressions". Was glad to see it was focused more on
credibility and use of "uhm", "ah" and other natural stumbling blocks of
speech.

The more someone pauses, to me, the more sincere they appear to me. As if they
are trying to think of the best way to phrase something for their audience.
Even if in reality they're frantically trying to remember what they were about
to say...

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austinjp
I like the notion that we are all, to some degree, synaesthetes. Hence the
colourful similes and metaphors that add spice to speech.

See? Can similes be colourful? Can speech be spicy?

To me this chimes with human brains being pattern seeking/matching machines.
Enough meaning leaks across discrete word definitions that we can freely use
phrases such as "an icy stare", "a prickly relationship" to appeal to senses
that are not directly involved in stares or relationships.

I have heard language theorists suggest that this appeal to multi-sensory
communication may have influenced the evolution of language among early
humans. Unfortunately I have no memory of who said this.

Still. I enjoy the theory.

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hyperpallium
The study probably controlled for this, but not mentioned in the article: um's
give listeners time to think.

Corollary: removing disfluencies from online lectures diminishes
comprehension.

I took Ullman's "Automata" course, and they'd edited out all the um's and
pauses etc in the vidoes, making them half as long. It reduces download size,
but made them really difficult to understand. You don't have time to process
one interesting thought before the next is upon you. Very different from live
lectures. I often had to rewind 5 to 10 times.

Yes, the material isn't easy and Ullman is full of insights, but this happened
even with the beginning of the introductory lecture.

From this article, it seems that the um's and pauses would also have helped
signal difficult vs easy ideas. (Sometimes I worked hard to grasp his precise
meaning, only to realize he was speaking casually).

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Datsundere
You have to agree though, "uhm"s and "uh"s are very annoying to listen to from
a speaker.

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ghaff
Editing podcasts makes me very aware of these types of speech patterns--both
in people I interview and myself.

