The influence of reading purpose on inference generation and comprehension in reading.

There are variations in the extent to which particular types of inferences or activations are made during reading (G. McKoon & R. Ratcliff, 1992; M. Singer, 1994). In this study, the authors investigated the influence of reading purpose (for entertainment or study) on inference generation. Participants read 2 texts aloud and 2 texts for comprehension measures. Reading purpose did not influence off-line behavior (comprehension) but did influence on-line reader behavior (thinking aloud). Readers with a study purpose more often repeated the text, acknowledged a lack of background knowledge, and evaluated the text content and writing than did readers with an entertainment purpose. This pattern was stronger for the expository text than for the narrative text. Reading purpose, and possibly text type, affects the kinds of inferences that readers generate. Hence, inferential activities are at least partially under the reader's strategic control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Inference during reading.

Most current theories of text processing assume a constructionist view of inference processing. In this article, an alternative view is proposed, labeled the minimalist hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the only inferences that are encoded automatically during reading are those that are based on easily available information, either from explicit statements in the text or from general knowledge, and those that are required to make statements in the text locally coherent. The minimalist hypothesis is shown to be supported by previous research and by the results of several new experiments. It is also argued that automatically encoded minimalist inferences provide the basic representation of textual information from which more goal-directed, purposeful inferences are constructed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effects of inference necessity and reading goal on children's inferential generation.

Examined inferential processing during reading. Adults and 3rd, 5th, and 8th graders read stories implying a consequence and answered questions. Some of the inferences were more necessary than others for comprehension according to T. Trabasso and P. Van den Broek's (see record 1987-18271-001) causal criteria, and the readers engaged in either superficial or integrative reading. Results showed that elaborative inferences were not as likely to be generated as those more necessary for comprehension. The necessity manipulation also produced a similar pattern of responding among the 4 groups, suggesting that even the young children were sensitive to the causal criteria. In addition, the integrative reading condition prompted a general slowdown for the 2 younger groups, whereas the 2 older groups were not as affected by reading condition. This pattern was interpreted in terms of differences in attention demands and working memory capacity. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Maintaining global coherence during reading.

Previous research demonstrated a contradiction effect: Although text currently being processed was locally coherent, readers were aware of inconsistencies between a protagonist's actions and characteristics of the protagonists that were described earlier in the text and subsequently backgrounded. In the present experiments, not only the critical characteristics but also the protagonist were backgrounded. When the protagonist was reintroduced into the narrative in the context of carrying out an inconsistent action, the contradiction effect again occurred. In Exps 1–3, we examined the effects of several variables on the onset of the effect. In Exp 4, we presented probes at various points in the passage with results that supported the conclusion that the critical characteristics had been backgrounded before the sentence that contradicted them. Results are discussed in terms of several recent models in which currently active representational elements serve as retrieval cues for other inactive, but highly related, elements. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Accessing global causes during reading.

In 4 experiments, the authors examined whether readers accessed distant causal antecedents for consequent events when the text was locally coherent and a more recent causal antecedent was available. Participants read passages that contained 2 possible causal antecedents for a consequent event; 1 appeared early in the passage, and the other appeared late. The early causal antecedent was elaborated in half of the passages, and neither causal antecedent was elaborated in the remaining half. Experiments 1A and 1B demonstrated that when the more distant, early causal antecedent had been elaborated, both it and the more recent, late causal antecedent were active in memory following the consequent event. In Experiments 2A and 2B, both causal antecedents were backgrounded prior to reading the consequent event. When neither causal antecedent had been elaborated, only the late causal antecedent was reactivated by the consequent event. However, when the early causal antecedent had been elaborated, only it was reactivated. Results are discussed in terms of several recent models of comprehension. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of interpretive and inference processes during text comprehension: A comparison of gaze durations and word reading times.

Investigated the locus of interpretive and inference processes during text comprehension. Two positions were contrasted: the buffer-integrate-purge position, which assumes that text-level interpretive and inference processes operate at sentence or clause boundaries, and the immediacy position, which assumes that interpretive and inference processes operate as soon as possible. Two methods of collecting word reading times were contrasted: gaze durations and self-paced word reading times. In simple narrative passages, there was an increase in word reading times for end-of-clause words when self-paced reading times were collected, but there was a decrease when gaze durations were measured with eye tracking equipment. The data indicate that interpretive and inference processes operate immediately and that buffering is to some extent an artifact of the self-paced moving window method. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effect of item position on the likelihood of identification by inference in prose reading and music reading.

In experiments with 21 university students (Exp I) and 7 adult musicians (Exp II), Ss were presented with verbal and musical texts which contained spelling and notational errors, respectively. Measures of detection in normal unpaced reading situations showed that errors were least likely to be detected when they occurred in the middle of words or musical phrases, demonstrating that the highest proportion of inferences occurred at these positions. The apparent similarities of the effects in music and language reading suggest that inference of interior elements usually results from structural rather than visual factors. (French summary) (28 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Properties of attention during reading lessons.

Investigated the attention of 116 children in 6 2nd- and 3rd-grade classrooms while they participated in 4 lessons involving progressively more difficult stories. Analysis of videotapes of the lessons revealed that the likelihood of a lapse of attention was highest during the 1st 15 sec of attention episodes. Lapses in attention were more likely among 2nd graders than among 3rd graders, among boys than among girls, in low groups than in middle groups, and in middle groups than in high groups. The more difficult the story, the more likely were lapses in attention, especially among younger and less able students. Reading-group membership was more strongly related to attention than were reliable measures of children's individual comprehension and fluency; a leading hypothesis to explain this finding is that reading groups have subcultures that differentially support paying attention. The most newsworthy finding of the study was the sharp drop in attention after oral reading errors; this drop was observed in all reading groups in both 2nd and 3rd grades. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Short-term retention of discourse during reading.

In 2 experiments, 68 3rd, 4th, and 6th graders at different reading levels were given a probe memory task assessing the availability in working memory of recently read discourse segments. During oral and silent reading (Exp I), retention was related to segment length and the occurrence of a sentence boundary. The limits on retention were tested by increasing segment length and difficulty (Exp II). For these segments, performance of less skilled readers was uniformly low, whereas that of the skilled and older readers continued to be affected by length and sentence boundary. Relationships between individual differences in verbal coding processes and short-term retention of discourse as well as implications for text comprehension models are discussed. (16 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reinstatement of causal information during reading.

An on-line word naming probe was used to test whether information presented earlier in a text, and then backgrounded by several sentences, would be reinstated when Ss were required to understand the cause of a currently processed action or event. In Exp 1, Ss named a probe word that represented an earlier-mentioned cause more quickly when it followed a causal coherence break than when it followed a neutral sentence. Exps 2 and 3 replicated this effect and examined 2 conditions that may affect the process of reinstating a cause: (1) inclusion of part of the context in which the cause was originally presented was not necessary to obtain reinstatement of the cause and (2) reinstatement of the cause was not evidenced when it had been disconfirmed earlier in the text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Connecting goals and actions during reading.

Three experiments showed that reading about a character's actions can reactivate a goal of the character stated earlier in the passage and backgrounded by intervening material. Ss were slower to read a line describing an action that was inconsistent with a goal of the protagonist than they were to read about an action that was consistent with the goal, even though both lines were locally coherent. Goals were reactivated even when the intervening material did not describe attempts to achieve the goal (Exp 2) and when the intervening material described another goal of the protagonist (Exp 3). The results suggest that reading a sentence can reactivate relevant information from earlier in the text, even when the sentence is coherent with its immediate context and the reactivated information has been backgrounded by several lines of unrelated text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Fast priming during eye fixations in reading.

Near-threshold primes were "flashed" in a target location prior to the onset of a target word while Ss read. The type and duration of the prime were manipulated. In Exp 1, identical, related, and unrelated primes were presented for 60, 45, or 30 msec from onset of an eye fixation. The prime was then replaced with the target word, which remained in place while Ss finished reading the sentence. Fixation time on the target word was measured. Exp 2 replicated Exp 1, with 2 exceptions: A random letter string replaced the identical prime condition, and prime durations of 39, 30, or 21 msec were used. In both experiments, significant priming effects (related vs unrelated) were obtained when the prime was presented for 30 msec. Results are discussed with regard to subliminal priming effects. Applications to the study of word recognition processes are also discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Teacher interruption behaviors during primary-grade oral reading.

Examined the verbal behaviors of 20 teachers following oral-reading errors of 267 1st–2nd graders. The incidence and type of verbal interruption behaviors that occurred during classroom reading instruction were contrasted for high- and low-ability readers. Results indicate that teachers are more likely to interrupt poor readers who err when reading aloud than good readers. Further analyses suggest that the types of interruption behaviors of teachers also differ as a function of reading ability level. (15 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some temporal characteristics of processing during reading.

14 college students read passages displayed on a CRT as their eye movements were being monitored. During occasional fixations, all letters to the left of the directly fixated letter or all letters more than 4 to the right of the fixated letter were replaced by other letters. This replacement occurred either for only the 1st 100 msec of the fixation or only after the 1st 100 msec of the fixation. Eye movement data indicate that the eyes could respond to change in the visual stimulus within less than 100 msec and to orthographic irregularity in the test within less than 160 msec. No evidence was found for a left-to-right attentional scan during a fixation. Results are interpreted within the framework of a chronology of processing events occurring during a fixation in reading. Eye movement patterns and the determination of fixation durations are discussed. (37 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of syntactic expectations during reading.

Two experiments examined the effects of knowing the syntactic structure of a sentence before reading it. In Exp I, 24 college students were required to remember a sequence of numbers before reading a sentence displayed at a constant rate. When the syntactic structure was known beforehand, Ss were able to devote more effort to rehearsing the numbers while reading the sentence. Consequently, their recall of the number sequence was superior. In Exp II, 8 undergraduates were timed while reading individual sentences. When the syntactic structure was known beforehand, reading times decreased. Results are explained in terms of linguistic decisions, memory storage during reading, and reading as an interactive process. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Task effects on eye movements during reading.

The present study examined how proofreading and reading-for-comprehension instructions influence eye movements during reading. Thirty-seven participants silently read sentences containing compound words as target words while their eye movements were being recorded. We manipulated word length and frequency to examine how task instructions influence orthographic versus lexical–semantic processing during reading. Task instructions influenced both temporal and spatial aspects of eye movements: The initial landing position in words was shifted leftward, the saccade length was shorter, first fixation and gaze duration were longer, and refixation probability was higher during proofreading than during reading for comprehension. Moreover, in comparison to instructions for reading for comprehension, proofreading instructions increased both orthographic and lexical–semantic processing. This became apparent in a greater word length and word frequency effect in gaze duration during proofreading than during reading for comprehension. The present study suggests that the allocation of attentional resources during reading is significantly modulated by task demands. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Activation of semantic and phonological codes during reading.

Examined coding processes involved in reading connected text in 3 experiments with 54 Ss who read text passages and occasionally responded to lexical-decision probes. Exp I focused on semantic and surface codes. Results suggest that the activation of semantic codes increased over time, whereas surface codes did not. In addition, Ss who were instructed to remember the exact wording of the passages showed stronger activation of surface codes than did Ss who read for comprehension. Exps II and III explored the role of phonological codes in reading. Results from Exp II indicate that phonological codes were activated by specific words in a passage; however, Exp III results fail to demonstrate that phonological codes were activated by the more general passage context. Combined results suggest that reading involves several coding systems that are activated according to time and reading instruction constraints. (35 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Integration of topic and subordinate information during reading.

Four experiments examined how readers integrate subordinate information with relevant context as they read. Ss read texts a sentence at a time with occasional interruptions lasting 30 sec. Following a distractor task, they resumed reading after being reminded of the topic sentence of the last paragraph they read (topic cue condition), being reminded of the last sentence they had read (local cue condition), or receiving no reminder of what they had been reading (no cue condition). Reading times on the 1st sentence following interruption were faster in the topic and local cue conditions than in the no cue condition (1) when the topic and local cues supplied missing referents for the target sentences, (2) when the target sentences were written to be understood as independent statements, and (3) whether the target sentences were embedded in short or long texts. Results are interpreted as demonstrating that readers integrate subordinate information with relevant topics, as well as with the immediate local context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Similarity-based interference during language comprehension: Evidence from eye tracking during reading.

The nature of working memory operation during complex sentence comprehension was studied by means of eye-tracking methodology. Readers had difficulty when the syntax of a sentence required them to hold 2 similar noun phrases (NPs) in working memory before syntactically and semantically integrating either of the NPs with a verb. In sentence structures that placed these NPs at the same linear distances from one another but allowed integration with a verb for 1 of the NPs, the comprehension difficulty was not seen. These results are interpreted as indicating that similarity-based interference occurs online during the comprehension of complex sentences and that the degree of memory accessibility conventionally associated with different types of NPs does not have a strong effect on sentence processing. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)