When reading multiple texts about controversial scientific issues, learners must construct a coherent mental representation of the issue based on conflicting information that can be more or less belief-consistent. The present experiment investigated the effects of text-belief consistency on the situation model and memory for text. Students read…

This study used think-aloud methodology to explore undergraduates' spontaneous attention to and use of source information while reading six documents that presented conflicting views on a controversial social scientific issue in a Google-like environment. Results showed that students explicitly and implicitly paid attention to sources of documents…