Examines the role of vocal cues in children's cognitive representations of texts. Finds that, in general, vocal cues influenced the speed and likelihood of constructing inferences but that cues failed to enhance memory for explicit text concepts. Discusses developing a model specifying the relationship between vocal cues and text understanding.…

Excerpts from a transcript of computer "conversations" provide the basis for a study of how people manage ongoing interaction, given the constraints of computer-mediated discourse, and whether any unusual conventions are used in doing so. The discourse was analyzed using address, topical references, and adjacency pairs to link the…

Investigates the management of expertise in advice-giving in the calls to a radio advice line. Analyzes how the expert's talk handles the tension between the personal and public dimensions of advice-giving in such a public forum. (HB)

Proposes that irony be viewed as a mode of indirect negation. Describes the multifaceted cognitive processes that are enlisted as a speaker interprets ironical statements. Gives an overview of past research on irony and presents a new interpretation of the ironic mode. (HB)

Focusing on how people select topics to mention when reporting on a personal event, a study investigated the hypotheses that people would be more likely to mention topics (1) of high prior concern than topics of low concern and (2) with an unusually good or bad outcome than topics with an ordinary outcome. Subjects, 12 couples expecting babies,…

Examines the relationship of construct differentiation and conceptual level to four features of argument design: number of arguments produced, coordinated conception of the problem, coordinated defense of the proposal, and diversity of stock issue covered. Finds that construct differentiation was positively associated with all four measures of…

Examined how persuasion relates to structural characteristics of attitudes, including the number and supportiveness of initial beliefs. Found that the tendency for strong arguments to persuade more than weak arguments was more pronounced for message recipients who retrieved more beliefs as compared to those who retrieved fewer beliefs. (RJM)

A discourse comprehension model is developed in which the initial processing is bottom-up. Word meanings are activated, propositions are formed, and inferences and elaborations are produced, regardless of the discourse context. A network of interrelated items is created which can be integrated into a coherent structure. (SLD)

Reports on two lab experiments which explored how undergraduate students process arguments and cues under ambiguous and uncertain conditions. Asks whether students use simultaneous processing or prefer exclusive processing. Indicates that students prefer exclusive processing, with no support for simultaneous. (HB)

Over the past two decades, theorists and researchers in cognitive structural developmental psychology have begun to investigate the social processes that impact upon individual cognitive growth. Studies have focused on how interactional processes lead to cognitive development but not on how the interactional processes are formed. This paper…

Examined the usefulness of conversational themes and attention-focusing strategies in predicting how people comprehend and recall conversations. Found that (1) unambiguous themes predicted conversational comprehensibility and recall accuracy and (2) personal information may be processed differently from content information. (PD)

Examines the persuasive message behaviors of truthful and deceptive communicators. Finds significant differences in the types of persuasive messages generated: truthful persuaders compose messages involving positive and negative sanctions; deceptive persuaders compose messages based on rationale or explanation. (KEH)

Distinguishes the cognitive, affective, and emotive effects produced by the 1992 presidential campaign, especially its presidential debates. Describes the kinds of cognitive effects engendered by the campaign activities and performances of the three major candidates. (HB)

A study explored the thoughts people have as they interact with others in conversation. Individuals were asked to communicate with each other over networked microcomputers and as they typed their messages, they spoke aloud their thoughts about the exchanges. These oral protocols, matched with the messages exchanged over the network, were then…

A listener's inferences about why speakers say what they do can influence what the listener remembers. Psychologists studying memory for discourse have neglected to give attention to the source of the information to be remembered. In a study to determine what effects adding information has on remembering initial discourse, subjects listening to…