There is accumulating evidence that readers continually evaluate the consistency, congruence, and coherence of text by processes of validation. Validation is initiated immediately on stimulus presentation, may proceed nonstrategically, and serves as a criterion for representational updating. However, validation exhibits a variety of deficiencies.…

The present set of 7 experiments systematically examined the effectiveness of adding causal explanations to simple refutations in reducing or eliminating the impact of outdated information on subsequent comprehension. The addition of a single causal-explanation sentence to a refutation was sufficient to eliminate any measurable disruption in…

This article presents three studies that investigate when syntactic constraints become available during the processing of long-distance backwards pronominal dependencies ("backwards anaphora" or "cataphora"). Earlier work demonstrated that in such structures the parser initiates an active search for an antecedent for a pronoun, leading to gender…

Two-syllable words were presented singly for study followed by a two-alternative, forced-choice test to 120 college students divided into four groups of 30 each. Half of the new words on the test ("I" words) were constructed by combining two syllables taken from two different study words, and half were neutral words ("C" words). If, as a…

The purpose of Experiment I was to investigate the context effect of letter perception for nonword material. The significance of finding a context effect for nonwords would be that the basis of the effect would have to be a product of a person's knowledge of the phonological or orthographic structure of the language rather than attributable to a…

In a model of the functioning of short term memory, the encoding of information for subsequent storage in long term memory is simulated. In the encoding process, semantically equivalent paragraphs are detected for recombination into a macro information unit. (HOD)

A series of experimental and theoretical investigations of text inference were conducted. One applied a theory of inferable text cohesion to the devising of text structure revisions that assist comprehension and memory. Since only modest success was achieved, the next three projects went beyond text revision to the use of adjunct outlines,…

Applies a taxonomy to a review of the methods used to study mental processes in reading that divides the methods into simultaneous or successive and obtrusive or unobtrusive; the taxonomy proved useful in describing encoding and memory processes. (AEA)

Sixty four college students participated in a study which sought to validate a set of predictions about story memory, derived from a story-grammar approach to comprehension. The grammar describes the higher-order structures regulating the organization and retrieval of incoming story information. These structures, defined by a basic set of rewrite…

The effects of imagery on the recognition of subunits within a textual passage were investigated. College students first rated the subunits of a textual passage with respect to imagery. A different group of subjects was then given the passage to read, and these subjects were subsequently tested for recognition, either immediately or one week…

Sixty of the possible beginning phonemes of English monosyllables were paired with the vowel /a/ in nonsense syllables, and used in illustrative one-syllable words. The sixty manners of commencing words had been scaled in terms of their relative perceptual similarity-dissimilarity in sounds. Both syllables and words were divided into three levels…

Proposing a shift in the locus of theoretical analysis of cognition, this paper argues that cognitive functioning may be more readily characterized without the mediation of long-term mental associations and structure. An account of cognition is proposed in which mental relations are transient functional relations, and in which psychological…

A study tested the theory that an item that stands out from its background is better remembered than one that is similar to the background (the isolation effect). Specifically, the study examined whether the isolation effect would be greater when there was a larger and more confusing mass of background items, whether position of the isolated item…

A study tested the assumption found in schema theory that scripted knowledge automatically provides specific content details about scripted activity, thereby biasing a reader's immediate interpretation of a text. The study measured how quickly and accurately 16 college students could verify script related words. Subjects listened to four scripted…

A study examined the effects of within domain processing on the recall of idea units as well as the potential reversals in performance resulting from the passing of time. Subjects for the experiment were 89 undergraduate students randomly assigned to six conditions related to target words in a reading passage: counting e's, determining the…