The effects of redundant communications on listeners: why different types may have different effects.

Much of our communication is redundant in that we say more than necessary to be informative. How listeners respond to verbal redundancy is important because of its frequency of occurrence and because such knowledge should enable us to increase our understanding of the development of listening skills. Previous research indicated qualitative developmental differences in how listeners respond to differentiating redundancy (several distinguishing features of a referent are mentioned). The present research compared performance with two forms of redundancy: differentiating and structured (e.g., mentioning a distinguishing referential feature and a feature shared by several contiguous stimuli) and investigated causes of differences in responding to the two forms. First- and fifty-graders participated in a referential communication paradigm. Results were discussed in terms of a processing capacity model: Redundancy should facilitate performance only if it decreases processing demands on a listener. Which processing demands will be affected will depend on the specific redundancy and the specific task.