The Effect of Co-Operative Communication on Navigational Skills

Cognitive Psycholgoy (PSYC09005).

Practical Assignment 1: Map Task.

The effect of co-operative communication on navigational skills.

Abstract.

Introduction.

For almost all people lanugage is a way to commiunincate with others in a social context. Without it our lives would be remarkably limited. But what is language? According to Harley (2008) Lauage "is a system of symbols and rules that enable us to communicate. It is these symbols and social rules which guide commmunication and enable us to interacte and co-operatate when disclosing information and problem solving. These social conventions governing language use explored have been explored in an area of through cognitive psychology known asd pragmatics "a knowlegde of the practical aspects of language. The most freguant example of social context of language use are Grices Maxims (1975), the identification of what is required in order for a successful communication. Grice (1967) believed that the key to successful communication is the co-operative principle, where speakers and listeners must try to be co-operative. In addition to the co-operative principle Grice proposed four maxims the speaker should heed:

Maxim of quantity: The speaker should make their contribution to the conversation as informative as necessary, but not more so.

Maxim of quality: The speaker should be truthful and not say that for which they lack adequate evidence.

Maxim of relevance: The speaker should be relevant to the current topic of the conversation.

Maxim of manner: The speaker should make thier contribution to the comversation clear, brief and avoid ambiguity.

However communication is an interactive process, therefore the listener must also structure their responses in a way which addresses the needs of their communicative partner for it to be fully successful.

For most communication purposes the exchange of language happens in the context of personal face-to-face interaction. This allows the use of verbal and non-verbal i.e. facial expressions cues to assist the communication process. in this report we will explore the use of language in its communicative context. In order to explore in full detail how language is used to communicate information an experimental paradigm (Map task) was employed as an example of co-operative communication task. The differnece between the guide and plotter maps allow us to determine how lanugage is used in and interavtive and co-operative manner in order to solve problems. The aim for this particular assignment was to discover the impact that the face-to-face interaction has on communication by examining hoew participants complete the map task under two conditions: a) communicative partner is visible or b) communnicative partner is noe visible.

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Method.

Design.

For this study social psychology students at university of west of scotland were placed in pairs and a set of instructions where given to both students. One was a set of instructions for the route plotter and the other a set for the guide. The independent variable, the variable which has been manipulated, for this study was whether a) the communicative partner i.e. the guide was visible to the route plotter or b) the communicative partner was not visible. The dependent variable in this study was a) the accuarcy in plotting the map b) the speed for completeing the task and c) the number of communication problems were a mistake may have been made.

Participants.

Third year social psychology students at the university of west of scotland were participants for this particulary study. A sample size of 48 students results were used. 23 experienced full comminucation were there communicative partner was visible and 25 experienced limited communication were the communicative partner was not visible.

Materials.

Each participant was given a set o intructions for their specific role in the experiment. The guide was given one map and the route plotter was given another. The route plotter was given a pencil to draw the intructions given to them by the guide onto their map and a stopclock was provided to time how long the task took in seconds.

Procedure.

This study was carried out by third year students attending the university of west of scotland studying social psychology. The aim was to test the effect the visibilty of the communicator has on the communication by examing how the particiapnts completed the map task under two conditions a) communicative partner is visible or b) communicative partner is not visible. Each student was put into pair and in their pair each were given a set of instructions, one for the route plotter and opne for the guide. These instructions told the participants in detail what was expected of them to complete the map task. once the participants fully understood their instructions they were each given a map, agian a different one for the route plotter and the guide. When the students were ready the stop clock was started and the guide began to give read instructions and directions for the guide to follow in order to plot the route on the map. Once the route is completed the route plotter and guide work out any specific points were a "wrong turning" was made. This is indicated by placing a small circle on that point and drawing some cross- hatching lines over the wrong part of the route. Having completed marking the mistakes the each group is then given a scoring sheet and an acetate overlay to score the map plotting. Finally all the data from the pairs is collected by the tutor for scoring.

Results.

Three independent t-test on the time taken to complete the map task in seconds was conducted to test for differneces between the two experimental conditions i.e. full/limited communication. 48 participants were studied 23 of whom had full communication and 25 of whom had limited communication. The first t-test was on speed. The group with full communication had a mean time of 221.96 with a standard deviation of 62.506. Whgats more the standard erroe (the standrad deviation of the sampling distrubituoin) is 13.033. The average time taken for the group with limited communication was 205.96, with a standard deviation of 77.930 and a standard error of 15.586. On average,