LANGUAGE INDICES IN THE MEASUREMENT OF COGNITIVE COMPLEXITY: IS COMPLEXITY LOQUACITY?

Within an accepted measurement system of the construct termed cognitive complexity, an analysis of the relationship between cognitive complexity scores and such indices of verbal complexity as number of tokens, type‐token ratio, and noun‐verb/adjective‐adverb ratio was conducted. Writing samples used to measure cognitive complexity were obtained and analyzed for verbal complexity. Results indicate that number of tokens account for 33 percent of the variance in cognitive complexity followed by noun‐verb/adjective‐ad verb ratio (8 percent) and the type‐token ratio (1 percent). Results are discussed relative to the potential for loquacity to impact the measurement of cognitive complexity.