S0029 · krauss_glucksberg_1977_social_speech · registry identity
Social and Nonsocial Speech experiments
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Resolution status: resolved
Krauss, Glucksberg · 1977 · Scientific American · journal-article
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Canonical propositions this source was matched as evidence for.
How Hirsch uses it
Every occurrence, grouped by book and chapter, with the claim it was linked to support and (where the extraction regenerated one) the underlying warrant.
1987 · Cultural Literacy
The second part of the Cambridge experiment showing that strangers lacking shared context use uncertain and rudimentary explanations.
direct The amount of shared knowledge that can be assumed in communication among American citizens declined between 1970 and 1985.
Warrant (implicit): If contemporary youth demonstrate the same communication failures in social interactions as subjects in a controlled experiment who lack shared context, then the national level of shared knowledge has likely declined to the level of those subjects.
could fail ifThe perceived decline in communication quality may result from changes in social etiquette or the medium of interaction rather than a reduction in the actual inventory of shared facts.
The Harvard Square experiment by Krauss and Glucksberg showing that speakers provide more detailed and rudimentary instructions to perceived 'out-of-towners' compared to 'natives.'
direct Effective communication between strangers requires a subconscious estimation of how much information can be taken for granted in the other person.
Warrant (implicit): When people modify their speech based on a listener's perceived origin, it proves that effective communication relies on assuming a specific body of shared background knowledge.
could fail ifSpeakers might provide more detail to out-of-towners not because of shared knowledge gaps, but simply because they assume the stranger is physically lost or unfamiliar with local geography.
A laboratory experiment using a physical barrier to simulate the constraints of reading/writing while subjects describe unfamiliar shapes.
direct A primary constraint of reading is the lack of conversational access, gestures, or facial expressions between author and reader.
Warrant (implicit): The physical separation of speakers in a lab provides a valid proxy for the cognitive and communicative challenges inherent in the medium of written text.
could fail ifPhysical barriers in a lab may induce a specific type of social anxiety or communicative frustration that is not present in the asynchronous, deliberate process of writing.
Comparison of adult shape descriptions (using shared analogies like 'motorboat' or 'spaceman') versus child descriptions (using idiosyncratic labels like 'Daddy's shirt').
direct Young children (ages four to five) produce short and cryptic messages in communication tasks because they rely on unshared associations.
Warrant (implicit): Inability to provide descriptions that a stranger can understand indicates a reliance on private or local associations rather than a lack of general linguistic competence.
could fail ifThe children's cryptic messages might stem from a lack of developed 'theory of mind'—the inability to realize others don't see what they see—rather than a lack of shared vocabulary.
Testing across multiple grade levels (K-9) showed that even 10-year-olds and 14-year-olds do not match the immediate accuracy of adults.
direct Even ninth-graders fail to reach adult levels of accuracy on the first trial of complex communication tasks.
Warrant (implicit): If a specific age group fails to achieve the immediate, error-free performance of adults on a communication task, they have not yet fully internalized the necessary socio-linguistic schemata.
could fail ifThe performance gap between 14-year-olds and adults may be due to differences in 'test-taking' focus or motivation rather than an underlying lack of communicative knowledge.
Experiments involving children describing strange shapes across a physical barrier to strangers.
related The performance failures of young children in communication experiments are identical in mechanism to the performance of poor readers.
2022 · American Ethnicity
An experiment in Harvard Square showing that people give much shorter, more efficient directions to those they perceive as fellow locals than to those they perceive as out-of-towners.
direct The accurate interpretation of spoken and written language depends on both speaker and listener sharing a significant amount of unstated knowledge.
Warrant (implicit): If speakers vary the complexity and length of their communication based on their perception of a listener's local status, then the efficiency of language depends on shared situational background knowledge.
could fail ifThe difference in direction length might be caused by a speaker's social politeness toward outsiders rather than a lack of shared cognitive shortcuts.
Experimental data showing that children (K-9th grade) perform poorly on a shape-communication task when a physical barrier prevents visual cues, whereas adults succeed instantly.
direct Even ninth-grade students fail to attain the perfect accuracy displayed by adults on initial trials of complex communication tasks.
Warrant (implicit): Failure to achieve immediate mastery of a task that requires anticipating another's perspective, despite significant practice, indicates a developmental or experience-based deficit in communicative competence.
could fail ifThe physical barrier might introduce anxiety or a 'testing effect' in ninth graders that is not present in adults, skewing the comparison of their underlying social-cognitive skills.
The Krauss-Glucksberg experiment involving children and adults describing strange shapes across a physical barrier to test social vs. nonsocial speech.
direct Literate adults possess a surer instinct for identifying what information will or will not be shared by others in the wider culture.
Warrant (implicit): Success in communicating novel information to a stranger without visual cues requires an internal model of 'public' vs 'private' knowledge that is refined through participation in a literate culture.
could fail ifThe performance gap might be explained by the adults' greater experience with the specific geometric vocabulary required to describe 'strange shapes' rather than a general social 'instinct.'
2024 · The Ratchet Effect
Research on social and nonsocial speech patterns.
direct American fifteen-year-olds are deficient in tasks that approximate the writing task because they lack a sense of the reader's knowledge.
Warrant (implicit): Failure in communicative tasks among adolescents is a result of a lack of socialized information about the audience's perspective rather than a cognitive inability to take another's viewpoint.
could fail ifThe deficiency in these tasks might be due to a lack of motivation or interest in the specific artificial scenarios used in the study rather than a lack of cultural knowledge.
Experiments by Kraus and Glucksberg where subjects must describe unfamiliar shapes to a partner behind a barrier, mimicking the conditions of writing.
direct Writing requires a sense of the other person's range of knowledge and expectations.
Warrant (implicit): Experimental tasks involving physical barriers and unfamiliar shapes are valid proxies for the cognitive demands of writing for an absent audience.
could fail ifThe lack of visual feedback in a physical barrier task may induce a different type of communicative failure than the lack of shared cultural context in a writing task.
Data from Kraus and Glucksberg showing that while literate adults score 100% on shape-ordering tasks, fifteen-year-olds take seven to nine trials to achieve perfect results.
direct American fifteen-year-olds are deficient in tasks that approximate the writing task because they lack a sense of the reader's knowledge.
Warrant (implicit): A failure to perform efficiently on a communication task involving unfamiliar objects implies a lack of social-cognitive awareness of the listener's perspective.
could fail ifThe fifteen-year-olds may lack the specific vocabulary or descriptive strategies for abstract shapes rather than lacking a general sense of the reader's knowledge.
Kraus and Glucksberg's finding that adults use more elaborated (prolix) descriptions than children when tasked with describing strange shapes to a listener.
direct Literate adults perform perfectly on communication tasks because they use prolix descriptions that relate unfamiliar items to shared, familiar shapes.
Warrant (implicit): The use of extensive, comparative description (prolixity) is the primary indicator of a communicator’s ability to bridge a knowledge gap with a stranger.
could fail ifVerbose descriptions can sometimes increase cognitive load and decrease clarity, meaning 'prolixity' is not always a proxy for successful communication.
Endnote numbers seen
Raw book:chapter:endnote references collected during endnote backfill.
ae:7:103ae:7:105ae:7:107ae:preface:2ae:preface:3cl:1:3cl:2:55cl:2:56cl:2:57
Raw source_reference strings seen
As they appeared before normalization/consolidation into this source identity.
Krauss and Glucksberg (1977)Krauss and Glucksberg, 'Social and Nonsocial Speech,' 1977Krauss and Glucksberg, 'Social and Nonsocial Speech,' Scientific American 236 (1977)R. M. Krauss and S. Glucksberg (1977)R. M. Krauss and S. Glucksberg, 'Social and Nonsocial Speech' (1977)R. M. Krauss and S. Glucksberg, 'Social and Nonsocial Speech,' Scientific American 236 (1977)