Visual signals in text comprehension: How to restore them when oralizing a text via a speech synthesis?

It has been assumed theoretically and established empirically that text signals exert an influence on text memorization and comprehension. The study investigates whether the restoration of the text visual signals improve text memorization and comprehension when automatically converting a text into speech. Participants listened to a restaurant menu oralized by a text-to-speech synthesis. The visual signals used in the menu were restored either with discursive segments, with prosodic cues, or with a picture of text, displayed before or during the listening. Participants had to perform tasks assessing their text memorization and comprehension. The restoration of text visual signals exerts an influence on the participants’ recall but these effects vary according to the restoration mean used and to the task. When visual signals are not restored, individuals construct an erroneous representation of the situation described in the text leading to a misinterpretation of the text meaning, whereas the discursive and prosodic restorations involve the construction of an adequate representation.