Recognition of time-compressed high- and low-predictability sentences by normal subjects

Recall accuracy for time-compressed real sentences varying in contextual redundancy was documented on 12 normal-hearing young adults. Ss were required to identify the final word (key word) of uncompressed and 60% time-compressed high-predictability (HP) and low-predictability (LP) sentences of the SPIN test sentences. Time compression was more detrimental for the perception of LP sentences than for HP items, suggesting that especially under conditions of temporal stress normal Ss rely upon the linguistic and semantic information contained within real sentences.