Listener Reactions Research Articles

Pragmatic competence as linguistic adaptation: Adapting linguistic resources to different listener reactions

Pragmatic competence as linguistic adaptation: Adapting linguistic resources to different listener reactions

'Do it afraid': An arts-based reflexive collective case study exploring youth responses to post-concussion communication changes in daily life.

Concussion and communication researchers have yet to study how post-concussion communication changes affect youths' daily lives. The lack of attention paid to how young people respond to communication changes during concussion recovery constitutes a significant gap in current concussion management research and practices. To explore how youth respond to the effects of post-concussion communication changes in their daily life, including (1) daily routines, (2) relationships with family members, (3) relationships with peers and (4) participation in school/work and community activities. Five youths (16-25 years) and three family members participated in this arts-based reflexive collective case study. Ecocultural theory provided the theoretical framework for study design, data collection and analysis. Cases consist of (1) pre-interview demographic information, (2) three 60-90-min virtual interviews, (3) optional family member interviews, (4) multi-media arts-based participant-generated materials representing participants' experiences of communication change and concussion, and (5) researcher observations, discussions and reflexive journal entries. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. Analysis yielded four themes that illustrate the ways youth navigated and adapted to post-concussion communication changes: (1) navigating changes in communication tasks, daily roles, and identity; (2) re-negotiating relationships and emotional reactions; (3) seeking control and learning to let go during recovery; and (4) helping youth adapt to post-concussion communication changes. The study findings deepen our understanding of the impact of post-concussion communication changes on youths' daily lives and underscore considerations critical to the development ofcommunication-focused concussion education programs and interventions tailored specifically for youth. What is already known on the subject Youth is a critical period of social and emotional development. Communication is integral to identity, relationships, participation in daily activities and well-being. Concussions can affect speech clarity, fluency, understanding and use of language, and social interactions. Re-engaging in routine activities and pre-injury roles can be challenging for youth experiencing communication changes as part of complex concussion recoveries. What this paper adds to the existing knowledge Findings from this research illuminate how youth navigate and adapt to communication changes post-concussion and support the development of youth-focused communication education programs, assessments and interventions. Youth participants actively managed their recoveries by developing innovative strategies to support their communication during daily activities, learning about communication, practicing communication tasks sequentially, and facing fears. Youth also reframed and challenged narrow views of 'normal communication'. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Findings highlight the need for more youth- and communication-focused education materials and programs within youth concussion management protocols. Information about the specific ecological and sociocultural factors youth encounter during concussion recovery is needed to develop targeted communication-focused education and intervention programs for youth and their families to mitigate risks of isolation, loneliness, and mental health concerns and increase youths' participation in family, community and cultural life. By learning from youth about how communication changes affected their participation in daily activities, identity and relationships, clinicians can provide information and interventions to reduce adverse listener reactions and help young people feel supported and understood.

Reduced duration of stuttering-like disfluencies and consistent anticipatory slowing during an adaptation task.

The adaptation effect in stuttering, traditionally described as the reduction of stuttering moments over repeated readings, provides a context to investigate fluency facilitation as well as a relatively controlled means of comparing fluent speech in the immediate vicinity of words that were stuttered versus fluently produced. Acoustic studies have documented decreased duration of fluent speech during adaptation but rarely address changes in disfluencies or the speech preceding or following the disfluencies. This study addresses this gap in the research by documenting frequency and duration changes in both fluent and stuttered syllables. Fifteen people who stutter read passages aloud five times in succession. Frequency and duration of fluent syllables, pauses, stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) and other disfluencies (ODs) were compared across the five readings. In addition, durations for syllables before and after pauses and SLDs were compared to determine if there were anticipation or carryover effects of SLDs on surrounding syllables. Durations measured for more than 22000 fluent syllables, 1531 pauses, 128 ODs and 1752 SLDs. For most of the 15 participants, significant decreases in both frequency and duration of SLDs over the five readings were observed. In addition, lengthening of fluent syllables immediately preceding the disfluent syllables was observed: this pre-SLD lengthening did not change over the five readings. Decreased duration of SLDs across readings supports the motor practice hypothesis, which assumes that successive reading of the same text increases the efficiency of the speech motor plans resulting in less stuttering and decreased durations of the stuttering that persists. Pre-SLD lengthening merits further study, because it informs our knowledge of the time course of stuttered events and may be associated with conscious or unconscious anticipation of upcoming SLDs that does not decrease with motor practice. What is already known on this subject The frequency of stuttering-like disfluencies (SLDs) can be reduced using a variety of fluency-enhancing strategies. For example, the adaptation effect, in which a reduction of stuttered events occurs over repeated readings of the same material, has been widely studied. Previous studies have shown that durations of fluent syllables decrease during adaptation, supporting the hypothesis that repeated practice of the motor plan leads to increased fluency. However, temporal changes in disfluent syllables and syllables preceding and following SLDs have rarely been studied, so our understanding of the effect of motor practice on stuttering reduction is incomplete. What this study adds This study has two significant findings. First, stuttered disfluencies that persisted after the initial reading of the adaptation task tended to become shorter in duration. Fluently produced syllables and those that were stuttered, both of which are speech events related to motor control of articulators, were affected in a similar manner by the motor practice associated with adaptation. Second, lengthening of fluent syllables immediately preceding stuttered syllables was observed. This pre-stuttering lengthening, however, did not decrease in duration over the five readings: the mechanism that drives this anticipatory behaviour is not affected by repeated practice. What are the clinical implications of this work? People who stutter have neural differences that lead to speech motor planning and/or execution that is less efficient than that of typical speakers. The finding that stuttering is reduced and that persisting SLDs become shorter in duration over repeated readings provides evidence that motor practice can influence the manifestation of stuttering by temporarily making those specific motor plans more efficient. This may inform treatments for stuttering. The observation that fluent syllables immediately before SLDs were lengthened, and that this lengthening was not influenced by repeated practice, extends our understanding of the time course of stuttering events and may be useful in understanding anticipation and listener reactions to stuttering.

FAIR Interconnection and Enrichment of Public-Domain Music Resources on the Web

Vast amounts of publicly licensed classical music resources are housed within many different repositories on the Web encompassing richly diverse facets of information—including bibliographical and biographical data, digitized images of music notation, music score encodings, audiovisual performance recordings, derived feature data, scholarly commentaries, and listener reactions. While these varied perspectives ought to contribute to greater holistic understanding of the music objects under consideration, in practice, such repositories are typically minimally connected. The TROMPA project aims to improve this situation by interconnecting and enriching public-domain music repositories. This is achieved, on the one hand, by the application of automated, cutting-edge Music Information Retrieval techniques, and on the other, by the development of contribution mechanisms enabling users to integrate their expertise. Information within established repositories is interrelated with data generated by the project within a data infrastructure whose design is guided by the FAIR principles of data management and stewardship: making music information Findable, Accessible, Interoperable, and Reusable. We provide an overview of challenges of description, identification, representation, contribution, and reliability toward applying the FAIR principles to music information, and outline TROMPA's implementational approach to overcoming these challenges. This approach applies a graph-based data infrastructure to interrelate information hosted in different repositories on the Web within a unifying data model (a 'knowledge graph'). Connections are generated across different representations of music content beyond the catalogue level, for instance connecting note elements within score encodings to corresponding moments in performance time-lines. Contributions of user data are supported via privacy-first mechanisms that retain control of such data with the contributing user. Provenance information is captured throughout, supporting reproducibility and re-use of the data both within and outside the context of the project.

Amplification Self-Adjustment: Controls and Repeatability.

This study was a continuation of work on an explore-and-select approach to the self-adjustment of amplification. Goals were to determine (i) the effect of changing the number of adjustment controls from three to two, (ii) the effect of changing the initial adjustment from overall output to high-frequency output, (iii) individual repeatability, (iv) the effect on phoneme recognition of increasing and decreasing overall output relative to the starting and adjusted conditions, and (v) listener reactions to, and opinions of, the self-adjustment procedure. Twenty-two adults with hearing loss, 10 of whom were hearing aid users, adjusted level and spectrum of connected speech to preference, using three configurations of number and order of adjustment parameters. The three adjustments were replicated to give a total of six. Presentation was monaural, in quiet, using the ear with the better threshold at 2 kHz. The starting condition was a generic prescription for a typical mild-to-moderate hearing loss. Real ear output spectra were measured for the 6 self-adjustments, the generic starting condition, and the individual NAL-NL2 prescriptions for speech at 65 dB SPL. Monaural phoneme recognition in monosyllables was assessed, in quiet, at levels of -14, -7, 0 and +7 dB relative to both the starting and the self-adjusted conditions. Participants completed a questionnaire and their comments on each question were transcribed. Changing the number of listener controls from 3 to 2 reduced mean adjustment time by around 50% but had negligible effect on group-mean output response. Starting adjustment with high-frequency output rather than overall output resulted in a 2 to 3 dB reduction of group-mean self-adjusted output below 1 kHz. Individual self-adjustments were within ±5 dB of NAL-NL2 prescription (for a 65 dB SPL speech input) for two-thirds of the participants in the high frequencies and for just over half in the low frequencies. In six self-adjustments, individuals self-adjusted, on average, to within ±4 dB of their own mean in both high and low frequencies. There was no evidence that these findings differed for hearing aid users and nonusers. Changes of overall output by ±7 dB after self-adjustment did not significantly affect group mean phoneme recognition. Preference for number and order of self-adjustment differed among participants, as did opinions on self-fitting of hearing aids. These findings support the conclusion that, for many adults with hearing loss, an explore-and-select procedure for self-adjustment of amplification leads to output values that are repeatable within a few dB, are relatively immune to the number and order of adjustment parameters, and place the average listener well along the plateau of a phoneme recognition versus amplitude function.

How are speech sound disorders perceived among children? A qualitative content analysis of focus group interviews with 10–11-year-old children

The aims of this study were to identify children’s reactions towards speech sound disorders (SSD) in other children and whether these reactions can be related to specific speech characteristics. Six audio samples, each containing minute-long resumes of short animated film by five children with SSDs and one child with typical speech (TS), aged 5–9 years, were played back to 17 10–11-year-olds, during four focus group interviews. The transcribed interviews underwent a qualitative content analysis. The analysis resulted in five identified main themes of listener reactions, concerning the experiences as a listener, the perspective of the speaker, as well as observations of speech characteristics. Reactions of empathy were expressed towards a perceived misalignment between speaker age and speech production proficiency. Awareness of peer reactions are clinically useful, for the understanding and acknowledgement of everyday contextual factors of children with SSDs, during planning and motivation of speech intervention. The children’s self-selected terminology may serve future quantitative investigations to further determine the boundaries of acceptability towards SSDs as well as towards non-standard sociolects or language varieties.

Sensemaking and Negative Emotion Sharing: Perceived Listener Reactions as Interpersonal Cues Driving Workplace Outcomes

Emotions are a ubiquitous part of the workplace, and research on emotion sharing suggests that people often seek out others to express and share their emotions, in particular their negative emotions. Drawing from theory on sensemaking within organizations, we argue that employee perceptions of listener responses to negative emotion/stressful-event sharing have a significant impact on how included employees feel with their peers and their organization-based self-esteem. If employees perceive that others have responded positively to their sharing of negative emotions, they will experience positive inclusion and esteem beliefs and seek to maintain these positive views through socially attached attitudes (i.e., greater commitment and lower turnover intentions). However, if employees perceive listeners have responded negatively, inclusion, esteem, and socially attached attitudes will suffer. Across two studies, we found that employees’ perceptions that others tended to respond to them in a positive manner (e.g., by being supportive and validating the employees’ perspective) predicted the extent to which employees felt included, and experienced positive organization-based self-esteem. In turn, this translated into increased organizational commitment and decreased turnover intentions. In contrast, perceived negative listener reactions (e.g., responding in a critical or disengaged manner) threatened these outcomes. Our second study suggested that these effects are more driven by identity (i.e., esteem)-related processes than by generalized perceptions of social support, and that these effects are stronger for those with lower levels of communion striving.

Language attitudes and the ‘ITA problem’: Undergraduate reactions to instructors' (non)nativeness and pitch variation

This language attitudes study investigates the roles of international teaching assistants' (ITAs') pitch variation and native language in listener reactions. Ninety‐five undergraduates rated native speakers of English and Korean, who had recorded a teaching‐related text once with monotone intonation and once with more varied intonation, on traits used in language attitude (status, solidarity) and ITA (teaching competence, comprehensibility) research. Teacher competence ratings were closely linked to attitudinal ratings. Greater pitch variation was rated more positively on both, while native language played little role. Positive ratings of Korean speakers may be attributed to listeners' difficulty in identifying their (nativelike) accents. Native language was nevertheless central to comprehensibility ratings. Implications include the need to recognize listener as well as speaker roles in (I)TA training and research.

Toward a better understanding of the process of disclosure events among people who stutter

PurposeThe purpose of this study was to identify components of disclosure events among people who stutter, and identify possible relations between these components in order to understand how disclosure events unfold. MethodTwelve adults who stutter participated in semi-structured interviews focused on disclosure of stuttering. Participants were purposefully selected due to their self-reported history of disclosing stuttering. Qualitative content analysis using a grounded theory approach helped to identify relevant themes and subthemes related to the process of disclosure of stuttering. ResultsThe findings describe the complex process of disclosure as being comprised of antecedents (including considerations about when and why to disclose), the disclosure event itself (including the content and form of the disclosure, most and least helpful methods of disclosure, as well as immediate listener reactions), and the perceived outcomes of the disclosure at individual, dyadic, and societal/contextual levels. These components of the process are linked and affect one another, resulting in a feedback loop. Disclosure methods are context-dependent and not mutually exclusive within individuals who stutter. ConclusionProfessionals and advocates gaining a more nuanced understanding of the process of disclosure events can increase their ability to help people who stutter make optimal decisions about disclosure. Making good disclosure decisions can help PWS improve their quality of life and reduce a variety of environmental communicative barriers.

Usability assessment of a wearable speech-processing platform

The ultimate value of the NIDCD open-source initiative lies in use of the resulting platforms in research studies that advance knowledge and practice in hearing health-care. This study is concerned with usability of the current instantiation of the UCSD wearable speech-processing platform in possible field studies of advanced processing and/or listener-adjustment protocols. Usability is assessed, here, in the context of hearing-aid self-adjustment. Starting with an NAL-NL2 prescription for a relatively mild generic hearing loss, volunteers self-adjust gain and spectral tilt to preference in the clinic. They use the embedded version of the Boothroyd and Mackersie “Goldilocks” protocol while listening to recorded narrative at a conversational level. They are then accompanied by the researcher to local environments, with varying background noise and reverberation, and are given the opportunity to readjust. Listener reactions are subsequently obtained via a structured interview covering opinions on the physical attributes, acoustic attributes, and ease of adjustment. These are supplemented by coupler and real-ear measures of self-selected responses together with measures of phoneme recognition as a function of listening level. Individual differences are extreme but most participants respond positively to acoustics and usability and a proportion indicate a willingness to wear the platform in field studies.

A Voice for East Germany: Developing the BBC German Service’s East Zone Programme

Originally conceived as part of Britain’s psychological warfare effort during the Second World War, the BBC German Service continued to broadcast from London to Germany throughout the Cold War. In 1949, in response to rising tensions between the Western Allies and the Soviets, the German Service created the East Zone Programme, specifically targeting listeners in what was to become the German Democratic Republic. This article analyses the perspectives and voices adopted by the East Zone Programme when addressing East Germans during the first decade of its existence, and the mutual risk-taking of broadcaster and listeners during the early Cold War. Drawing on scripts, correspondence, and policy documents from the BBC Written Archives Centre and the German Broadcasting Archive, the article examines contributions by British presenters such as Lindley Fraser and Richard O’Rorke, wartime German-speaking émigrés including Bruno Adler, Robert Lucas and Erich Fried, and East German letter writers and defectors, asking who was best placed to speak to and for listeners in the German Democratic Republic. An analysis of listener reactions to the East Zone Programme shows listeners’ gradual disillusionment with the BBC External Services’ non-intervention policy for broadcasting to states behind the Iron Curtain.

Listener judgments of speaker and speech traits of varieties of Asian English

ABSTRACTThis study examines language attitudes towards different varieties of English through listener judgments of speaker and speech traits; in addition, the study explores the relationship of these judgments to the intelligibility, as well as the perceived accentedness and comprehensibility, of varieties of Asian English and General American English. While a great deal of research has examined the intelligibility, accentedness, and comprehensibility of English, including varieties of Asian English, no research to date has examined the relationship between language attitudes and the aforementioned dimensions of Asian English speech. That is, little is known about how listeners’ judgments regarding speaker and speech traits relate to intelligibility, as well as how such judgments relate to the way in which the listener evaluates the accentedness and comprehensibility of the speaker's speech. The current study addresses these issues through an examination of listener reactions to three varieties of Asian English (Hong Kong English, Singapore English, and China English), as well as American English.

The Unintended Consequences of Rape Disclosure: The Effects of Disclosure Content, Listener Gender, and Year in College on Listener's Reactions.

Rape is prevalent on American college campuses. Rape survivors often disclose their experience to their peers in hope of receiving support and obtaining justice (i.e., the intended consequences of disclosure). Yet, rape disclosures may also lead to unintended consequences, such as stigma. How peers react to survivors' disclosures of rape greatly influences survivors' recovery and their decision to press charges against their perpetrators. In this article, we explore gender differences in responses to rape disclosures. Using an experimental design (N = 391), we investigate reactions to stigmatizing (versus nonstigmatizing) rape disclosures. We find that, when controlling for the experimental condition, college men stigmatize the rape survivor more than college women. However, in response to a stigmatizing (versus nonstigmatizing) rape disclosure, college women who have been in college longer, compared with college men, have more stigmatizing reactions toward the person disclosing that information. Their reactions then predict increased social distance between the recipient of the disclosure and rape survivors.

Making Sense of Secondary Effects Analysis after Reed v. Town of Gilbert

Forty years ago, the Supreme Court created Secondary Effects Analysis, a deferential review of sexually-oriented business regulations so long as the regulators’ purpose is to reduce the “secondary effects” of selling speech rather than the speech itself. Secondary Effects Analysis has always been an odd fit in Free Speech Clause doctrine, since the Court has never explained what distinction of constitutional significance allows regulators that target businesses because of the content of the speech they sell to escape strict scrutiny review. Now, however, the need for a principled explanation for the continued existence of Secondary Effects Analysis has become urgent, in the wake of the Court’s recent, and seemingly absolute statement in Reed v. Town of Gilbert, Arizona, that laws that are content based on their face must be reviewed under strict scrutiny. This Article is the first to reevaluate the potential grounding and principled justification for this entrenched doctrinal anomaly in light of the Court’s opinion in Reed. Although the Court has never undertaken the task, it is possible to tighten and focus the prerequisites for entry into the analysis by identifying the attributes of the effects that it has accepted as “secondary” and understanding why those attributes may support a principled departure from strict review. A principled distinction explains that secondary effects are caused, in part, by positive, rather than negative, listener reactions to speech content; they are the foreseeable, likely, and imminent results of business operations; and they are caused, in part, by the time, place or manner variable adjusted by the regulation, and this cause must appear to be the exclusive target of the regulation. Regulators and courts urgently need this understanding to explain their continuing embrace and guide their applications of Secondary Effects Analysis after the Court’s decision in Reed.

Musical Representation and Vivaldi's Concerto Il Proteo, ò Il mondo al rovverscio, RV 544/572

Vivaldi's concerto titles draw ambivalent reactions from historians, who see them as commercial hooks, rarely reflecting musical substance. But titles condition a work's reception, connecting it to a cultural context by which to steer a listener's reactions, both intellectual and affective. Eighteenth-century writers on aesthetics recognized the role of textual “ideas” in the reception of music. Vivaldi's Il Proteo, ò Il mondo al rovverscio is regarded as a “trick piece” in which the solo violin and cello parts are “reversed,” each being written in the other's clef. The concerto, however, invokes a deeper conception of the mundus inversus metaphor, in that it constitutes a remarkably sophisticated exploration of upside-down compositional practices. While the opening movement challenges notions of “correct” musical syntax, evoking the Carnival celebrations of the “world upside down,” the last presents a well-ordered example of Vivaldian ritornello form. Vivaldi included Il Proteo as the first concerto in a large group sold to Pietro Ottoboni in the mid-1720s, twelve of which bear titles. Some are as concrete as “The Four Seasons,” but others are more abstract, deriving from affective or intellectual subjects such as“Il riposo.” Il Proteo, in this context, seems especially sophisticated, cleverly satirizing some of the composer's own trademark compositional techniques. Its self-conscious treatment of style appears to address contemporary debates regarding music's ability to carry “meaning,” an ability that members of Ottoboni's Arcadian Academy seemed to deny but that others, such as the philosopher Antonio Conti, endorsed. Might Vivaldi have fueled these debates with a provocative set of concertos headed by Il Proteo?

The perceived impact of stuttering on personality as measured by the NEO-FFI-3

The NEO-FFI has been widely used to demonstrate personality differences between people who stutter (PWS) and those who do not. These differences can be interpreted as indicators of internal sources of disability that contribute to handicaps associated with stuttering. The aim of the current study was to use this same tool to determine the perceived impact of stuttering on personality in order to provide a similar indicator of how external factors may contribute to the stuttering disability. A total of 49 non-stuttering young adults were given the NEO-FFI-3 after watching a video of someone stuttering (moderately to severely) and after watching a video of someone speaking fluently. Participants were asked to answer test items while imagining that they had spoken like the persons in the videos for their entire lives. When asked to assume the stuttering perspective, participants reported themselves to be significantly more neurotic (P < 0.01) and less extraverted (P < 0.01) than when they assumed the perspective of the fluent speaker. The large differences (∼10 points; greater than one standard deviation) in these domains between the fluent and stuttered perspectives are consistent with existing stereotypes about PWS. These differences are greater than and only partially consistent with differences in personality found between PWS and non-stuttering individuals. The findings support the notion that external factors (e.g. listener reactions and stereotypes about PWS) contribute strongly to the manner in which stuttering restricts function and results in handicaps.

Perceptual Detection of Subtle Dysphonic Traits in Individuals with Cervical Spinal Cord Injury Using an Audience Response Systems Approach

Reduced respiratory function following lower cervical spinal cord injuries (CSCIs) may indirectly result in vocal dysfunction. Although self-reports indicate voice change and limitations following CSCI, earlier efforts using global perceptual ratings to distinguish speakers with CSCI from noninjured speakers have not been very successful. We investigate the use of an audience response system-based approach to distinguish speakers with CSCI from noninjured speakers, and explore whether specific vocal traits can be identified as characteristic for speakers with CSCI. Fourteen speech-language pathologists participated in a web-based perceptual task, where their overt reactions to vocal dysfunction were registered during the continuous playback of recordings of 36 speakers (18 with CSCI, and 18 matched controls). Dysphonic events were identified through manual perceptual analysis, to allow the exploration of connections between dysphonic events and listener reactions. More dysphonic events, and more listener reactions, were registered for speakers with CSCI than for noninjured speakers. Strain (particularly in phrase-final position) and creak (particularly in nonphrase-final position) distinguish speakers with CSCI from noninjured speakers. For the identification of intermittent and subtle signs of vocal dysfunction, an approach where the temporal distribution of symptoms is registered offers a viable means to distinguish speakers affected by voice dysfunction from non-affected speakers. In speakers with CSCI, clinicians should listen for presence of final strain and nonfinal creak, and pay attention to self-reported voice function and voice problems, to identify individuals in need for clinical assessment and intervention.

Graduate Student Experiences Using Easy Onsets

This qualitative study explored reports from 18 graduate students related to their experiences using easy onsets in three speaking situations for a total of 54 speaking situations recorded across all participants. Thematic analysis revealed three major themes and seven minor themes. Major Theme 1 was related to the influence that the listener and situation had on self-perceptions. The 3 minor themes that contributed to this major theme were: anxiety related to listener reactions, the telephone being an easier speaking situation, and nature of the situation having an influence. Major Theme 2 was related to the uncomfortable nature of using the skills with 2 minor themes contributing and consisting of: mental effort and energy to use the skill, and the feeling of unnatural sounding and difficulty in using the skill. Major Theme 3, the final major theme found, related to previous success and comfort using the skill. Two minor themes contributed to this same major theme and included: previous experience using the skill had an impact on self-perceptions and more comfort using the skill over multiple attempts.

Stuttering: A Preliminary Study of the Female Perspective

Gender differences in attitudes and experiences of adults who stutter have been studied to a small degree. Qualitative analyses of adults who stutter have included women as part of their sample; however, no such analysis to date has specifically explored the experience of women who stutter at different points in their lifetime. This pilot study was designed as a preliminary look at the experiences of three women who stutter in adolescence, early adulthood, and middle adulthood. Ethnographic interviews were conducted, and transcripts were culled for emergent themes. Specific identified themes included those related to outcomes of communication avoidance, preferences for listener reactions to stuttering, and shifting cognitive perceptions of stuttering with age. Interview transcripts were further analysed for comments related to defined characteristics of covert stuttering. Results indicated that the number of covert characteristics identified by each woman differentiated preferences for listener reactions and outcomes of communication avoidance. Responses occurred along a continuum. Women who identified more covert characteristics in their interview placed greater responsibility on the listener for knowledge of appropriate reactions to stuttering. Women who identified fewer covert characteristics placed more responsibility on themselves for listener education. Likewise, women with more covert characteristic responded to significant instances of communication avoidance with more avoidance. Women with fewer covert characteristics used communication avoidance as a motivator to approach future challenging situations. Numbers of covert characteristics identified by each participant were further compared to quantitative scores on the four subtests of the Overall Assessment of the Speaker's Experience of Stuttering (Yaruss, Quesal, & Coleman, 2010). Results revealed that higher impact scores on the “Reactions to Stuttering” and “Communication in Daily Situations” were seen among women who identified more covert characteristics in interviews. Implications of findings for assessment, treatment, and future study of gender in stuttering will be presented.

Young People’s Reactions Change Elderly People’s Generativity and Narratives: The Effects of Intergenerational Interaction on the Elderly

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of the young listener’s reaction on the development of generativity and narratives of elderly people. Thirty-four males between the ages of 60 and 82 participated in this experiment in which the listener generations (young/elderly) and listener reactions (empathic/neutral) were controlled. The participants shared and taught their wisdom gained from their past experiences through narratives. Results showed that many elderly people spoke about “lessons from experiences of failure” when there was an empathic reaction from young people, and such narratives were promoted by an increase of generativity. These results suggested the impact of the younger people’s reaction on the elderly people’s psychological development and behavior.