Effects of a high information-processing load on the writing process and the story written

The purpose of this study was to test how information-processing load affects the writing process (through thinking-aloud reports) and the story written. Information-processing load was increased by having subjects write to an ending sentence with more content constraints. Secondary reaction times were synchronized with thinking-aloud statements to yield a measure of cognitive effort for the components of the writing process and for the overall task. A high information-processing load led to lower rated story coherence, but not to lower rated quality. A high load did not increase overall cognitive effort, but changed the distribution of processing time, with more reviewing earlier. Results suggest that a high information-processing load altered the distribution of writing processes, which resulted in lower story coherence.