How Do Our Readers Really Think, Understand, and Decide—

Despite What They Know?

Mark Hochhauser, Ph.D.email: MarkH38514@aol.com

PLAIN20139th Conference and 20th Anniversary of

Plain Language Association International

Vancouver, British Columbia, CanadaOctober 2013

Writing, reading, judging and deciding are neurobiological processes:

They take place in different parts of the brain

So give some thought to how a reader’s brain actually processes what your brain writes.

Plain language benefits some, not allText comprehension studies

1. “…word knowledge is critical for good comprehension. Vocabulary is the single best predictor of comprehension ability.”

2. “…a reader needs to know the meanings of 90 percent of the individual words contained within a text in order to comprehend it.”

3. Readers need to understand about 98% of the vocabulary for adequate text comprehension

• Vocabulary did not strongly correlate with language comprehension or verbal fluency in adults with low literacy. • Low literacy adults haven’t made the shift from word recognition to language comprehension.

All readers are not the same

Reading, comprehension and cognition are affected by:

1) Aging brain; Learning disabilities, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder

2) How reading comprehension is measured and on whom

3) Health problems• adult coronary syndrome • medical inpatient experience• chemotherapy (chemobrain) • metabolic syndrome• common medical conditions• type II diabetes• drug addiction• traumatic brain injury• menopausal transition• vascular risk factors

Five Judgment and Decision Making Strategies

“Law of least effort”: If there are several ways to achieve the same goal, readers will eventually take the least demanding route.

Less demanding routes to a decision

• Two Thinking Systems• Information Overload• Intuition• Heuristics• Framing

1. Thinking strategies: Two Thinking Systems

Logical/Analytical Emotion/Intuition (Good?) (Bad?)

Decisions are emotional first; logical second.

Logical/Analytical Emotion/Intuition

a) Slow decisions a) Fast decisions

b) Controlled b) Automatic

c) Much effort c) No effort

d) Complex analysis d) Habitual

e) Sensible and logical e) Emotional memories; feelings

f) Delayed decisions f) Immediate

2. Information Overload

How much information can a reader store in “working memory?”• Early research: 7, + 2 or about 5 – 9 items

• Later research: 3 – 5 items• More recent: 4-7, depending on age:

Peaks around age 25 – 35

A reader’s brain can only process a limited amount of information; especially in the aging brain

If cognitively overloaded, readers must use other ways to reach a conclusion or make a decision.

3. Intuition: Knowledge without reasoning

Direct perception of truth or fact independent of any reasoning process

Involves selective focus on specific aspects of an experience• “Knowing without awareness”—automatically (unconsciously) not cognitively (consciously)• “Thin slicing”—”the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and behavior based on narrow slices of experience”

4. Heuristic strategies: simplify complex choices by finding adequate answers to difficult questions

How to pick a Medicare supplemental health plan:

a) Analyze all of the online and printed information available to compare plans—a complicated and time consuming task; requires good research skills

b) Affect heuristic:eliminate plan “M” because previous bad experience = painful emotions and memory

c) Effort heuristic: More value given to work that takes more time, especially if value is ambiguous.

5. Psychological Framing

Framing: using different ways to present the same information

• Beef is 75% lean (a healthy gain)

• Beef is 25% fat (an unhealthy loss)

They mean the same, but are interpreted differently.

Conclusions

1. Plain language may make information more comprehensible for some readers, but not all.

2. There are limits to how much information a reader’s brain can remember and process.

3. The reader’s brain will come with its own ways to make decisions.

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