Coh-Metrix: Capturing Linguistic Features of Cohesion
Coh-Metrix: Capturing Linguistic Features of Cohesion
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DOI：
10.1080/01638530902959943
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发表时间：
2010-01-01
影响因子：
2.2
通讯作者：
Graesser, Arthur C.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
McNamara, Danielle S.;Louwerse, Max M.;Graesser, Arthur C.
本研究旨在探讨语篇心理学对计算技术的需求，即在语篇衔接和难度的多个层面上分析语篇。话语心理学家经常使用包含多个段落的冗长文本来研究与话语处理相关的现象，而不是单个单词和句子刺激。从衔接和连贯的角度来描述这些文本是一项挑战。一些计算工具是可用的，但它们要么分散在不同的数据库中，要么评估文本的单一，具体的特征。Coh-Meetings是一种计算语言学工具，它在一系列单词，句子，段落和话语维度上测量文本衔接和文本难度。本研究以已发表的语篇心理学研究为基准，考察了Coh-Meidler作为语篇衔接手段的有效性。结果表明，Coh-Meetland的衔接指数（单独和组合）显着区分这些文本的高，低衔接版本。结果还表明，常用的可读性指标（例如，Flesch-Kincaid）不恰当地区分低衔接和高衔接文本。这些结果提供了一个验证Coh-Meetings，从而为研究人员在认知科学，话语过程和教育，以及教科书的作者，专业人士在教学设计和教师的使用铺平了道路。
This study addresses the need in discourse psychology for computational techniques that analyze text on multiple levels of cohesion and text difficulty. Discourse psychologists often investigate phenomena related to discourse processing using lengthy texts containing multiple paragraphs, as opposed to single word and sentence stimuli. Characterizing such texts in terms of cohesion and coherence is challenging. Some computational tools are available, but they are either fragmented over different databases or they assess single, specific features of text. Coh-Metrix is a computational linguistic tool that measures text cohesion and text difficulty on a range of word, sentence, paragraph, and discourse dimensions. This study investigated the validity of Coh-Metrix as a measure of cohesion in text using stimuli from published discourse psychology studies as a benchmark. Results showed that Coh-Metrix indexes of cohesion (individually and combined) significantly distinguished the high- versus low-cohesion versions of these texts. The results also showed that commonly used readability indexes (e.g., Flesch-Kincaid) inappropriately distinguished between low- and high-cohesion texts. These results provide a validation of Coh-Metrix, thereby paving the way for its use by researchers in cognitive science, discourse processes, and education, as well as for textbook writers, professionals in instructional design, and instructors.