Text variations at the level of the individual sentence and the comprehension of simple expository paragraphs.

In Exps I, II, V, and VI, 274 4th–6th graders chose titles and wrote summary sentences for simple expository paragraphs. Ss did not utilize the information in topic sentences as effectively as did 116 undergraduates (Exps II and IV), but their performance improved when the topic sentence was highlighted. All Ss were better able to detect sentences that conformed neither to the paragraph's general nor specific topic than sentences conforming only to the general topic. The canonical topic comment form made deviant sentences more difficult to detect, as did the introduction of collocational ties, indicating that text variations at the level of individual sentences affected the evaluation of information that did not conform to the overall paragraph structure. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)