Effects of topic knowledge on the allocation of processing time and cognitive effort to writing processes

Conditions of low & high knowledge about the topic of a writing task were compared in terms of the time & cognitive effort allocated to writing processes. These processes were planning ideas, translating ideas into text, & reviewing ideas & text during document composition. Directed retrospection provided estimates of the time devoted to each process, & secondary task reaction times indexed the cognitive effort expended. Topic knowledge was manipulated by selecting Ss in experiment 1 (N = 30 Coll students) & by selecting topics in experiment 2. The retrospection results indicated that both low- & high-knowledge writers intermixed planning, translating, & reviewing during all phases of composing. There was no evidence that low- & high-knowledge writers adopt different strategies for allocating processing time. About 50% of writing time was devoted to translating throughout composition. From early to later phases of composing, the percentage of time devoted to planning decreased & that devoted to reviewing increased. The secondary task results showed that the degree of cognitive effort devoted to planning, translating, & reviewing depended on the task. Also, the high-knowledge writers expended less effort overall than did the low-knowledge writers; there was no difference in allocation strategy across planning, translating, & reviewing. 5 Figures, 47 References. HA