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Voting Advice via Internet: Political literacy in a digital information society The central aim in our NWO ‘Comprehensible Language’ project (2012-2016) was to investigate to what extent Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) intentionally and unintentionally affect political knowledge and political attitudes. In this article, we present an overview of four years of research. First, we investigated reasons for use of VAAs, distinguishing three types of users: checkers (well-informed, enjoying to check the VAA), seekers (looking for political information to base their vote on) and doubters (looking for information but cynical about politics). The proportions of these groups differ for first vs. second order elections. Second, we investigated whether VAAs increase users’ political knowledge. We found that users report an increase of internal efficacy due to their VAA use, but we did not find an increase in actual political knowledge. Third, a field experiment showed systematic effects of framing variation on the answers to VAA assertions, which might suggest different underlying knowledge representations. Finally, think aloud research showed that users experience considerable problems with understanding the assertions semantically and pragmatically, as well as with interpreting the results screen. Additionally, we found that users view the result screen as an end point rather than as a starting point for deliberation. We discuss some implications for theory and practice.

In this study, the influence of parental input on the acquisition of discourse connectives was investigated. Three factors were hypothesized to play a role in contributing to the course of language acquisition: first, an increase in age, and hence, an increase in conceptual abilities; second, short-term frequency effects (effects of parental input in the space of one recording); and third, long-term frequency effects (effects of the cumulative parental input over a longer period of time). The authors developed a growth curve analysis and used this to analyze data from a dense longitudinal corpus of a German boy aged 1;11.12—2;11.27. Results show that each factor has a significant effect on the acquisition of the German connectives aber `but,' damit `so that,' und `and,' weil `because,' and wenn `when' and should always be taken into account when studying connective acquisition. Furthermore, growth curve analysis promises to be an innovative tool to study factors influencing the course of language acquisition.

Respondents are more likely to disagree with negative survey questions (This text is boring. Yes/No) than to agree with positive ones (This text is interesting. Yes/No). The size of this effect, however, varies largely between word pairs. A semantic classification of adjectives in closed scale/absolute and open scale/relative types was predicted to explain this variation. To classify survey adjectives, a judgment experiment was conducted. Language users (N = 173) rated sentences in which an adjective was modified by the maximizer completely or the approximator almost: it should be possible to combine closed scale/absolute adjectives with these modifiers, in contrast to open scale/relative adjectives for which this is not the case. Results show that language users agree on which adjective and degree modifier combinations are acceptable and which combinations are unacceptable. Moreover, the two methods, almost and fully, show convergent validity. However, the rating of the same combination of a specific adjective and a specific degree modifier varies across contexts. This suggests that neither of the two methods allows for an unambiguous classification of adjectives. Hence, the distinction between closed scale/absolute and open scale/relative adjectives cannot explain variation in survey response effects. For semantics and pragmatics results indicate that context plays a crucial role in the linguistic behavior of adjectives and degree modifiers.

In many countries with multiparty systems, a decline in class voting has increased volatility and the need for comprehensive information about the political landscape among voters. Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) are online tools that match users to political parties and, as such, they hold a promise of reinforcing informational transparency and democratic representation. The current research investigated whether VAAs live up to this expectation by investigating to what extent VAAs affected users' political knowledge and vote choice in the Dutch national elections of 2012. Results show that VAA users feel that the VAA improved their political knowledge. In addition, those groups of VAA users who experienced a large knowledge increase, also relatively often indicated that their vote choice had been affected. This suggests that VAAs contribute to informational transparency by increasing knowledge among a potentially wide audience, and also that VAAs might increase democratic representation to the extent that VAAs persuade people to vote for the candidate that best represents their opinions. On the other hand, we found discrepancies between behavioural and perceptual measurements of the effect of VAAs on vote choice. This raises doubts about whether VAAs shape actual voting behaviours and knowledge, or rather perceptions of that.

Survey designers have long assumed that respondents who disagree with a negative question (“This policy is bad.”: Yes or No; 2-point scale) will agree with an equivalent positive question (“This policy is good.”: Yes or No; 2-point scale). However, experimental evidence has proven otherwise: Respondents are more likely to disagree with negative questions than to agree with positive ones. To explain these response effects for contrastive questions, the cognitive processes underlying question answering were examined. Using eye tracking, the authors show that the first reading of the question and the answers takes the same amount of time for contrastive questions. This suggests that the wording effect does not arise in the cognitive stages of question comprehension and attitude retrieval. Rereading a question and its answering options also takes the same amount of time, but happens more often for negative questions. This effect is likely to indicate a mapping difference: Fitting an opinion to the response options is more difficult for negative questions.

The central aim in our NWO ‘Comprehensible Language’ project (2012-2016) was to investigate to what extent Voting Advice Applications (VAAs) intentionally and unintentionally affect political knowledge and political attitudes. In this article, we present an overview of four years of research. First, we investigated reasons for use of VAAs, distinguishing three types of users: checkers (well-informed, enjoying to check the VAA), seekers (looking for political information to base their vote on) and doubters (looking for information but cynical about politics). The proportions of these groups differ for first vs. second order elections. Second, we investigated whether VAAs increase users’ political knowledge. We found that users report an increase of internal efficacy due to their VAA use, but we did not find an increase in actual political knowledge. Third, a field experiment showed systematic effects of framing variation on the answers to VAA assertions, which might suggest different underlying knowledge representations. Finally, think aloud research showed that users experience considerable problems with understanding the assertions semantically and pragmatically, as well as with interpreting the results screen. Additionally, we found that users view the result screen as an end point rather than as a starting point for deliberation. We discuss some implications for theory and practice.

Survey designers have long assumed that respondents who disagree with a negative question (“This policy is bad.”: Yes or No; 2-point scale) will agree with an equivalent positive question (“This policy is good.”: Yes or No; 2-point scale). However, experimental evidence has proven otherwise: Respondents are more likely to disagree with negative questions than to agree with positive ones. To explain these response effects for contrastive questions, the cognitive processes underlying question answering were examined. Using eye tracking, the authors show that the first reading of the question and the answers takes the same amount of time for contrastive questions. This suggests that the wording effect does not arise in the cognitive stages of question comprehension and attitude retrieval. Rereading a question and its answering options also takes the same amount of time, but happens more often for negative questions. This effect is likely to indicate a mapping difference: Fitting an opinion to the response options is more difficult for negative questions.

Respondents are more likely to disagree with negative survey questions (This text is boring. Yes/No) than to agree with positive ones (This text is interesting. Yes/No). The size of this effect, however, varies largely between word pairs. A semantic classification of adjectives in closed scale/absolute and open scale/relative types was predicted to explain this variation. To classify survey adjectives, a judgment experiment was conducted. Language users (N = 173) rated sentences in which an adjective was modified by the maximizer completely or the approximator almost: it should be possible to combine closed scale/absolute adjectives with these modifiers, in contrast to open scale/relative adjectives for which this is not the case. Results show that language users agree on which adjective and degree modifier combinations are acceptable and which combinations are unacceptable. Moreover, the two methods, almost and fully, show convergent validity. However, the rating of the same combination of a specific adjective and a specific degree modifier varies across contexts. This suggests that neither of the two methods allows for an unambiguous classification of adjectives. Hence, the distinction between closed scale/absolute and open scale/relative adjectives cannot explain variation in survey response effects. For semantics and pragmatics results indicate that context plays a crucial role in the linguistic behavior of adjectives and degree modifiers.