The current set of experiments was designed to explore the processing of spatial information during reading, specifically the "spatial-shift" effect and the "spatial-gradient" effect. Experiments 1 and 2 demonstrated that when participants were presented with text alone (i.e., without prior map memorization, virtual…

We examined the impact of prospective information on the processing of information occurring within the present timeline of narrative stories. Participants read target sentences that were consistent with events occurring within a protagonist's present timeline but inconsistent with events in the protagonist's future. When prospective information…

How do people determine whether a conversation is good or bad? Do conversational phenomena (reaching common ground, striving to contribute equally, successful conversational closings) influence judgments of conversation quality and recall of conversations? We tested whether individuals reading previously transcribed conversations considered…

Eyetracking studies have shown that readers reread ironic phrases when resolving their meaning. Moreover, it has been shown that the timecourse of processing ironic meaning is affected by reader's working memory capacity (WMC). Irony is a context-dependent phenomenon but using traditional eye-movement measures it is difficult to analyze processing…

We examined whether positive emotions interacted with task instructions and topic beliefs to influence processing and memory of a dual-position text. Participants provided emotion and belief ratings, were instructed to focus on one position in a dual-position text while reading silently (Experiment 1) or thinking-aloud (Experiment 2), and then…

The present study examined the relationship between working memory capacity (WMC) and comprehension on a multiple text assessment from the ACT test for college preparedness in which texts are available during question answering. Specifically, it was of interest whether differences in relations would be seen across different question types. Only…

The generation of predictive inferences may be difficult when a story leads to multiple possible consequences. The present study examined whether inferences are generated when the story implies two mutually exclusive consequences are nearly equally likely to occur. Experiment 1 used a word-naming task and showed that neither inference was…

We segment what we read into meaningful events, each separated by a discrete boundary. How does event segmentation during encoding relate to the structure of story information in long-term memory? To evaluate this question, participants read stories of fictional historical events and then engaged in a postreading verb arrangement task. In this…

Multi-modal discourse comprehension requires speakers to combine information from speech and gestures. To date, little research has addressed the cognitive resources that underlie these processes. Here we used a dual-task paradigm to test the relative importance of verbal and visuospatial working memory in speech-gesture comprehension. Healthy,…

This eye-tracking study examines how differences in sources' trustworthiness are used by readers to regulate and resolve conflicting scientific claims. One hundred forty-four university students were sequentially presented with two conflicting scientific claims (regarding nanotechnology) across two texts. The claims were indicated to stem from two…

Narrative comprehension requires the allocation of resources to the construction of a situation model describing the events and circumstances in the narrative. While mind wandering, fewer resources may be devoted to this task. In the present research, we assessed whether the effects of distraction on memory for narrative event order are…

While research has repeatedly found evidence that readers infer characters' emotions, we investigate three outstanding questions about the content and time course of such inferences. We ask whether even simple narratives give rise to emotion inferences, in what form such inferences are encoded into long-term memory, and whether they are uniquely…

The underlying cognitive mechanisms explaining why speakers sometimes make communication errors are not well understood. Some scholars have theorized that audience design engages automatic processes when a listener is present; others argue that it relies on effortful resources, even if a listener is present. We hypothesized that working memory is…

A large body of work has demonstrated that reader resources influence inference processes and comprehension, but few models of comprehension have accounted for such resources. The Direct and Mediational Inference model of comprehension (DIME) assumes that general inference processes mediate the effects of reader resources on general comprehension…

Several theoretical proposals tried to account for the meaning open-endedness of metaphors in literature and for the effortful process they trigger in readers. However, very few experiments have tackled the neurophysiological underpinnings of literary metaphor. Here we used Event-Related brain Potentials (ERPs) to explore the temporal dynamics of…