The effect of filled pauses on the processing of the surface form and the establishment of causal connections during the comprehension of spoken expository discourse

Exploring the Effects of Online Physician Voice Pitch Range and Filled Pauses on Patient Satisfaction in Mobile Health Communication

The convenience of mobile devices has driven the widespread use of voice technology in mobile health communication, significantly improving the timeliness of online service. However, the issue of listening to therapeutic content, which requires great cognitive effort and may exceed the patient's information processing capacity (i.e., information overload), is of concern. Based on information processing theory, this study reports how online physicians' voice characteristics (pitch range and filled pauses) affect patient satisfaction. We obtained 10,585 mobile voice consultation records of 1,416 doctors from China's largest mHealth platform and analyzed them using audio mining and empirical methods. Results showed that pitch range (β = 0.0539, p < .01) and filled pauses (β = 0.0365, p < .01) in doctors' voice positively influenced online patient satisfaction. However, the effect of filled pauses becomes weaker for patients with higher health literacy and higher disease risk. This suggests that there is heterogeneity in the way different patients process audio information. This study provides important insights for guiding online physician behaviors, enhancing patient satisfaction, and improving mobile health platform management.

Gender-based violence in Latin America (Ecuador and Argentina): current state and challenges in the development of psychoeducational materials

Gender-based violence (GBV) is a complex social and public health problem, which represents a human rights violation. Globally, GBV tends to occur in intimate partner relationships. Latin American countries report high rates of this violence. Despite their social and historical differences, Ecuador and Argentina are among Latin countries that aim to dismantle patriarchy. Developing psychoeducation materials is one way in which communities can recognize and prevent GBV. Psycholinguistics can provide useful tools to facilitate learning about this social issue: prior studies suggest that promoting the establishment of discourse connections, the generation of emotion inferences and the emotional involvement of the comprehender facilitate written and spoken discourse comprehension. The aim of this commentary article is to present an overview of the current incidence of GBV in Ecuador and Argentina, and to highlight the contributions that preliminary research on discourse comprehension can make to facilitate learning about GBV prevention strategies. Finally, we will discuss possible research guidelines and future directions. We expect that this manuscript will contribute to highlighting the importance of promoting social awareness of GBV and, therefore, the crucial role of the design and implementation of scientifically based interventions.

Bilingual Children's Narrative Comprehension: Do Pauses during Retelling Buy Time for Understanding?

This study extended research on bilingual children's narrative comprehension to text processing during retelling. A cross- and monolinguistic design allowed for the investigation of the association of various aspects of narrative comprehension with two types of pause occurring during oral retelling of a story heard in one language and retold in a second or in the same language. A sample of 95 bilingual (L1 German/L2 English) fourth-graders participated in the experiment. Comprehension was predominantly accomplished during listening, as children with L1 input outperformed children with L2 input, but they did not benefit from L1 in retelling. Children's comprehension performance and corresponding pause patterns suggested that the duration of filled pauses dedicated to gist formation indicated efficiency of comprehension: The duration decreased with increasing comprehension. The findings allowed the conclusion that longer pauses during retelling did not buy time for comprehension.