Function word repetitions emerge when speakers are operantly conditioned to reduce frequency of silent pauses

Beattie and Bradbury (1979) reported a study in which, in one condition, th ey punished speakers when they produced silent pauses (by lighting a light they were supposed to keep switched off). They found speakers were able to reduce silent pauses and that this was not achieved at the expense of reduc ed overall speech rate. They reported an unexpected increase in word repeti tion rate. A recent theory proposed by Howell, Au-Yeung, and Sackin (1999) predicts that the change in word repetition rate will occur on function, no t content words. This hypothesis is tested and confirmed. The results are u sed to assess the theory and to consider practical applications of this con ditioning procedure.