When a situation could lead to multiple mutually exclusive consequences, recent research shows that people automatically generate multiple predictive inferences in memory. Several theoretical mechanisms have been proposed to account for the generation of predictive inferences. One hypothesis is that inferences are minimally encoded, represented…

In discourses involving implicit causality, the implicit cause of the event is referentially predictable, that is, it is likely to be rementioned. However, it is unclear how referential predictability is calculated. We test two possible explanations: (1) The frequency account suggests that people learn that implicit causes are predictable through…

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…

People often speak ambiguously, as in the case of "indirect requests." Certain indirect requests are conventional and thus straightforward to interpret, such as "Can you turn on the heater?", but others require substantial additional inference, such as "It's cold in here." How do comprehenders make inferences about a…

There is general agreement that predictive inferences are activated when there is strong contextual support in the discourse model; however, there has been debate concerning the specificity of these inferences. In a series of 3 experiments, the specificity of context was manipulated to test the effects of contextual support on inference…

Cognitive interest is a motivation to acquire information that is caused by a cognitive and emotional state of uncertainty about the meaning of a text. It can, therefore, be expected to increase if a text raises an issue in readers' mind without resolving it. In support of this expectation, the results of 3 experiments show that the readers'…

This study investigates whether readers can generate predictive inferences that remain available to guide comprehension after a number of intervening sentences. The nature of the inference (detailed versus general) was also examined. In four experiments, participants read stories that suggested an inference. Reading time was measured to target…

It has been suggested that predictive and bridging inferences are generated at different levels of text representation: predictive inferences at a reader's situation model and bridging inferences at a reader's propositional textbase (Fincher-Kiefer, 1993, 1996; McDaniel, Schmalhofer, & Keefe, 2001; Schmalhofer, McDaniel, & Keefe, 2002). Recently,…

Although some types of inferences are mandatory for readers, predictive inferences (inferences for what will happen next) are generally considered elaborative or optional. Three experiments measuring probe word lexical decision latencies produced evidence for the online generation of predictive inferences during narrative text comprehension.…