Effect of threat of shock for being disfluent of fluency of normal speakers.
Each of 20 adult nonstutterers read a 330-word passage six times with a one minute pause between readings. Between the third and fourth reading or the fifth and sixth reading (determined by a table of random numbers) Ss were informed that at the conclusion of the next reading an electric shock would be administered for each instance of disfluency detected by E during that reading. Ss did not become less fluent as a consequence of the experimental condition. Their mean disfluency frequency during the threat-of-shock reading was lower than during the preceding one. Thus, threat of shock for being disfluent may be a condition which differentiates stutterers from nonstutterers since stutterers have been reported to become less fluent under this condition.
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D004597:Electroshock; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011678:Punishment; D013060:Speech; D013342:Stuttering / Q000209:etiology