Showing papers in "Discourse Processes in 2014"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors systematically examined the processes that occur while reading texts designed to refute and explain commonsense beliefs that reside in readers' long-term memory and found that providing readers with a refutation-plus-explanation of a commonsense belief was sufficient to significantly reduce disruption during reading caused by the commonsense believe.
Abstract: In the present set of experiments, we systematically examined the processes that occur while reading texts designed to refute and explain commonsense beliefs that reside in readers' long-term memory. In Experiment 1 (n = 36), providing readers with a refutation-plus-explanation of a commonsense belief was sufficient to significantly reduce disruption during reading caused by the commonsense belief. In Experiment 2 (n = 36), the refutation alone reduced but did not eliminate the disruption during reading caused by the commonsense belief. However, in Experiment 3 (n = 36), the explanation alone was as effective as the refutation-plus-explanation in reducing disruption during reading. Finally, in Experiment 4 (n = 73), the refutation-plus-explanation manipulation not only reduced disruption during reading caused by the commonsense belief, it also produced long-term learning outcomes. Findings are discussed in the context of the Knowledge Revision Components framework.
148 citations
TL;DR: This work directly tested this validation process by varying the strength of the relation between information presented in a narrative and information in general world knowledge, finding that the strength and timing of the inconsistency effect depended on this relation.
Abstract: Previous text comprehension studies using the contradiction paradigm primarily tested assumptions of the activation mechanism involved in reading. However, the nature of the contradiction in such studies relied on validation of information in readers' general world knowledge. We directly tested this validation process by varying the strength of the relation between information presented in a narrative and information in general world knowledge. In Experiment 1, we found that the strength and timing of the inconsistency effect depended on the strength of this relation. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrated that this was due to differences in the rates at which readers activated, integrated, and validated information in the high- and low-related conditions. The results are explained within the context of a view of reading that incorporates resonance (R), integration (I), and validation (Val) processes during reading—the RI-Val view of comprehension.
112 citations
TL;DR: A simple NLP (SiNLP) tool is introduced and made available to proliferate the use of NLP in discourse processing research and an instantiation and empirical evaluation of the linguistic features measured by SiNLP are provided to demonstrate their strength in investigating constructs of interest to the discourse processing community.
Abstract: Natural language processing (NLP) provides a powerful approach for discourse processing researchers. However, there remains a notable degree of hesitation by some researchers to consider using NLP, at least on their own. The purpose of this article is to introduce and make available a simple NLP (SiNLP) tool. The overarching goal of the article is to proliferate the use of NLP in discourse processing research. The article also provides an instantiation and empirical evaluation of the linguistic features measured by SiNLP to demonstrate their strength in investigating constructs of interest to the discourse processing community. Although relatively simple, the results of this analysis reveal that the tool is quite powerful, performing on par with a sophisticated text analysis tool, Coh-Metrix, on a common discourse processing task (i.e., predicting essay scores). Such a tool could prove useful to researchers interested in investigating features of language that affect discourse production and comprehension.
61 citations
TL;DR: The authors examined the relationship among source credibility (trustworthiness and expertise), perceptions of certainty in message claims, and plausibility perceptions about climate change and found that trustworthiness and message certainty perceptions were significant predictors of plausibility perception, above and beyond knowledge about human-induced climate change.
Abstract: Gaps between what scientists and laypeople find plausible may act as a barrier to learning complex and/or controversial socioscientific concepts. For example, individuals may consider scientific explanations that human activities are causing current climate change as implausible. This plausibility judgment may be due—in part—to individuals' perceptions about the information source and the certainty associated with the message claim. In this study, we examined the relationship among source credibility (trustworthiness and expertise), perceptions of certainty in message claims, and plausibility perceptions about climate change. Our analysis revealed that trustworthiness and message certainty perceptions were significant predictors of plausibility perceptions, above and beyond knowledge about human-induced climate change. These findings suggest that perceptions about information sources may have an important influence on plausibility judgments and, consequently, on learning about controversial and/or abstrac...
57 citations
TL;DR: The authors found that readers were more likely to reread ironic than non-ironic target sentences during first-pass reading as well as during later look-backs, and individual differences related to working memory capacity (WMC), sarcasm self-report scale (SSS), and need for cognition (NFC) in the processing of irony.
Abstract: We examined processing of written irony by recording readers' eye movements while they read target phrases embedded either in ironic or non-ironic story context. After reading each story, participants responded to a text memory question and an inference question tapping into the understanding of the meaning of the target phrase. The results of Experiment 1 (N = 52) showed that readers were more likely to reread ironic than non-ironic target sentences during first-pass reading as well as during later look-backs. Experiment 2 (N = 60) examined individual differences related to working memory capacity (WMC), Sarcasm Self-Report Scale (SSS), and need for cognition (NFC) in the processing of irony. The results of Experiment 2 suggest that WMC, but not SSS or NFC, plays a role in how readers resolve the meaning of ironic utterances. High WMC was related to increased probability of initiating first-pass rereadings in ironic compared with literal sentences. The results of these two experiments suggest that the pr...
54 citations
TL;DR: Results provide evidence for routine validation even when it is not encouraged by the task, but they also suggest that semantic processing is critical for validation to occur.
Abstract: Whether information is routinely and nonstrategically evaluated for truth during comprehension is still a point of contention. Previous studies supporting the assumption of nonstrategic validation have used a Stroop-like paradigm in which participants provided yes/no judgments in tasks unrelated to the truth or plausibility of the experimental sentences. Other studies using a nonevaluative task failed to support this assumption. This leaves open the possibility that validation is conditional on an evaluative mindset of the reader. In the present study, we investigated this question directly by using a nonevaluative probe task. Participants responded to the probe words “true” or “false” with two different keys after reading true or false sentences for comprehension. Results provide evidence for routine validation even when it is not encouraged by the task, but they also suggest that semantic processing is critical for validation to occur. These results can be taken as evidence for a close connection betwee...
52 citations
TL;DR: This article examined whether readers' memories for conflicts and their situational interpretation of conflicts would be affected by reading goals and lexical cue phrases that signal rhetorical relationships, and found that summary goal readers reported conflicts more often in a one-sided fashion.
Abstract: Understanding conflicts between sources is an inherent part of science text comprehension. We examined whether readers' memories for conflicts and their situational interpretation of conflicts would be affected by reading goals and lexical cue phrases that signal rhetorical relationships. To this end, 198 undergraduates read multiple documents on a medical controversy either with signals or without, following one of three reading goals (argument, summary, keyword list). Readers' memories for conflicting information were measured with a conflict verification task, and their situational interpretation of conflicts was analyzed from written essays. Results reveal that both argument and summary tasks as well as signaling facilitated verification of conflicts. In their essays, however, summary goal readers reported conflicts more often in a one-sided fashion. In contrast, argument goal readers and those who read texts with signals reported conflicts in a balanced fashion that included source information. Both ...
45 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that readers might exhibit more conservative use of information from stories with unrealistic settings and characers, as in science fiction and fantasy genres, and they subsequently completed a general knowledge test that included probes for story information.
Abstract: Authors of fiction need not provide accurate accounts of the world, which might generate concern about the kinds of information people can acquire from narratives. Research has demonstrated that readers liberally encode and rely upon the information provided in fictional stories. To date, materials used to demonstrate these effects have largely included stories taking place in real-world settings. We tested whether readers might exhibit more conservative use of information from stories with unrealistic settings and characers, as in science fiction and fantasy genres. In two experiments, participants read texts containing accurate, misleading, or neutral information, embedded in realistic or unrealistic stories. They subsequently completed a general knowledge test that included probes for story information. Unrealistic stories, in comparison to realistic stories, led to reductions in the use of misinformation. Source monitoring judgments suggest explanations for these reductions. The findings offer intrigu...
33 citations
TL;DR: This paper found that the proportion of direct quotations and facial portrayals was significantly higher in the two dialogue conditions than in the monologue condition and that figurative references and hand gestures were not significantly different in either dialogue condition.
Abstract: Demonstrations (e.g., direct quotations, conversational facial portrayals, conversational hand gestures, and figurative references) lack conventional meanings, relying instead on a resemblance to their referent. Two experiments tested our theory that demonstrations are a class of communicative acts that speakers are more likely to use in dialogue than in monologue. We compared speakers' rates of demonstrations in face-to-face dialogues, telephone dialogues, and monologues into a handheld microphone or recorder. Experiment 1 confirmed that the proportions of speakers' direct quotations and facial portrayals were (1) significantly higher in the two dialogue conditions than in the monologue condition and (2) not significantly different in the two dialogue conditions. Experiment 2 found the same patterns for the rates of figurative references and hand gestures. In both experiments, regressions confirmed that the increase in demonstrations in dialogues was independent of any effect of visibility.
28 citations
TL;DR: For instance, this paper found that people read and recall narratives that were coded for causal breaks and causal connectivity and reported slower reading times and better memory for causal break and faster reading times with increased prior causal connections.
Abstract: Narrative memory is better for information that is more causally connected and occurs at event boundaries, such as a causal break. However, it is unclear whether there are common or distinct influences of causality. For the event boundaries that arise as a result of causal breaks, the events that follow may subsequently become more causally connected to it as people seek to understand why the break occurred and the consequences of it. Thus, although a causal break has no prior causal connections, it may be linked to many pieces of subsequent information, thereby ultimately affecting memory for it. As such, better memory would be due to increased final causal connectivity, not to being an event boundary of the causal break, per se. The current study had people read and recall narratives that were coded for causal breaks and causal connectivity. The results revealed slower reading times and better memory for causal breaks and faster reading times and better memory with increased prior causal connections. Al...
27 citations
TL;DR: It is proposed that the authors' preference for communicating through Internet-based text derives from a fundamental feature of writing: in contrast to speech, which is most often synchronous, text is most likely asynchronous.
Abstract: Google the question, “How is the Internet changing the way we communicate?,” and you will find no shortage of opinions, or fears, about the Internet altering the way we communicate. Although the Internet is not necessarily making communication briefer (neither is the Internet making communication less formal), the Internet is manifesting our preference for writing over speaking. I propose that our preference for communicating through Internet-based text derives from a fundamental feature of writing: In contrast to speech, which is most often synchronous, text is most often asynchronous.
TL;DR: Regression analysis suggested that all subjects validated the target sentence but that only high-access readers were also sensitive to subtle pragmatic discourse influences, and there was a generally similar truth × negation × reading span interaction profile.
Abstract: Understanders appear to routinely and immediately evaluate the congruence of discourse at many levels of analysis, processes often labeled “validation.” This study was an initial exploration of individual differences in discourse validation. Text reading-time profiles were examined as a function of two negligibly correlated reader qualities: first, their working memory resources (indexed by reading span), and second, their accessing of relevant antecedent message ideas and world knowledge in the service of comprehension. Participants read narratives bearing a target sentence that was either true or false with reference to the preceding text and was expressed either in the affirmative or negative. For low-access readers, reading time was greater for false than for true affirmative target sentences and vice versa for negative targets, mirroring a familiar pattern of intentional sentence verification. In contrast, for high-access readers, reading time was greater for false than for true sentences regardless ...
TL;DR: A classificatory model is proposed that can be used to analyze vague expressions according to moment-by-moment communicative needs and reveals some unique vague expressions including ‘rhyming words,’ ‘replacing expressions,” and ‘the affective completer.’
Abstract: The present study sets out to investigate the structures and functions of vague expressions in Persian. The data under scrutiny include a 15-hour corpus of informal conversations. The corpus reveals some unique vague expressions including ‘rhyming words,’ ‘replacing expressions,’ and ‘the affective completer.’ Furthermore, a classificatory model is proposed that can be used to analyze vague expressions according to moment-by-moment communicative needs. The model divides the functions fulfilled by vague expressions into cooperative and noncooperative ones. Cooperative functions are those functions that serve to provide the hearer with enough information, however vague it is. Noncooperative functions are, on the other hand, those functions that show the speaker's unwillingness to provide the hearer with enough information. Cooperative functions are further divided into stance-oriented and engagement-oriented ones. While stance-oriented functions are motivated by the speaker's own judgments, engagement-orien...
TL;DR: This study presents a new approach for transforming the latent representation derived from a Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) space into one where dimensions have nonlatent meanings, supporting the conclusion that the non latent coordinates generated using this methodology preserve the semantic relationships within the original LSA space.
Abstract: This study presents a new approach for transforming the latent representation derived from a Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) space into one where dimensions have nonlatent meanings. These meanings are based on lexical descriptors, which are selected by the LSA user. The authors present three analyses that provide examples of the utility of this methodology. The first analysis demonstrates how document terms can be projected into meaningful new dimensions. The second demonstrates how to use the modified space to perform multidimensional document labeling to obtain a high and substantive reliability between LSA experts. Finally, the internal validity of the method is assessed by comparing an original semantic space with a modified space. The results show high consistency between the two spaces, supporting the conclusion that the nonlatent coordinates generated using this methodology preserve the semantic relationships within the original LSA space.
TL;DR: The work presented in this special issue is reviewed and discussed while focusing on a number of issues that warrant further investigation in validation research, including the nature of the validation processes, the processes and mechanisms that support validation during comprehension, and the factors that influence validation.
Abstract: In this article, I review and discuss the work presented in this special issue while focusing on a number of issues that warrant further investigation in validation research. These issues pertain to the nature of the validation processes, the processes and mechanisms that support validation during comprehension, the factors that influence validation, the role of validation in current theories of reading comprehension, the relation between validation and standards of coherence, and the distinction between validation and updating. Further exploration of these issues will contribute to our understanding of the role of validation in the overall comprehension process and will help push the field of discourse processes even further forward.
TL;DR: This paper examined the influence of a human or computer partner on the production of fillers during a question and answer task and found that individuals modulate their filler use in response to the nature of their speech partner.
Abstract: The present study examined the influence of a human or computer “partner” on the production of fillers (um and uh) during a question and answer task. Experiment 1 investigated whether or not responding to a human partner as opposed to a computer partner results in a higher rate of filler production. Participants produced many more fillers when responding to a human. Experiment 2 tested the possibility that this large effect was driven by the mere presence of another person. It was not. There was, however, a small effect of human presence on fillers, a novel result. That individuals modulate their filler use in response to the nature of their speech partner is a critical piece of evidence in favor of the filler-for-partner hypothesis. Collectively, our data provide convergent support for the theoretical position that fillers are not solely produced as the result of difficulties in speech planning or production, but they also play a functional role in the communicative interaction between speakers and liste...
TL;DR: This article investigated whether memory for scientific arguments and their sources were affected by the appropriateness of the claim-evidence relationship and found that evidence and, to a lesser extent, source information was recalled more poorly for articles that overstated results than for those where evidence was appropriate (i.e., causal claim with experimental evidence).
Abstract: We investigated whether memory for scientific arguments and their sources were affected by the appropriateness of the claim–evidence relationship. Undergraduates read health articles in one of four conditions derived by crossing claim type (causal with definite qualifier, associative with tentative qualifier) and evidence type (experimental, correlational). This manipulation produced articles that overstated the results of a study and articles that understated their results, along with appropriate controls for each. We found that evidence and, to a lesser extent, source information was recalled more poorly for articles that overstated results (i.e., causal claims using correlational evidence) than for those where evidence was appropriate (i.e., causal claim with experimental evidence). Readers rejected these overstatements based on the study design rather than reprocessing the text. In contrast, understatements (tentative claim, experimental evidence) were recalled just as well as their appropriate contro...
TL;DR: The authors examined the influence of semantic similarity and causal specificity on the perceived comprehensibility and goodness of causal explanations and found that semantic similarity in the form of an overlap of nouns between adjacent sentences exerted more influence on less-skilled readers' perceptions of the comprehensibility of explanations.
Abstract: Prior research has shown that readers are sensitive to causal relations between sentences. In addition, the extent to which readers put weight on causal relations seems to depend on their reading skill. Very little attention, however, has been given to the perception of causal relations linguistically expressed by different types of causal verbs within a sentence. This article reports an experiment that examined the influence of semantic similarity and causal specificity on the perceived comprehensibility and goodness of causal explanations. The results showed that semantic similarity in the form of an overlap of nouns between adjacent sentences exerted more influence on less-skilled readers' perceptions of the comprehensibility of explanations. Conversely, causal specificity in the form of verbs indicating causation with a particular result more strongly impacted more-skilled readers' perceptions of the goodness of explanations. The results suggest that, depending on their reading skill, readers have dif...
TL;DR: The overarching consideration for this special issue concerns identifying and understanding how the comprehension and validation of text information are related to one another.
Abstract: During everyday discourse experiences, people use their prior knowledge not only for interpreting and enriching text content but also for evaluating the plausibility or truthfulness of what they read. Consider, for example, a future voter perusing newspaper articles on a political topic, scientists reading journal articles in their areas of expertise, or an individual looking up information about a medical condition on the Internet. All these instances illustrate a reader engaging in knowledge-based evaluation, which involves consideration of the validity of communicated information (and may be subsumed under the concept of validation; Singer, 2013). The overarching consideration for this special issue concerns identifying and understanding how the comprehension and validation of text information are related to one another. Despite the fact that comprehension and validation seem to co-occur during many discourse experiences, validation has only recently attracted the attention of text comprehension researchers. This relative lack of interest may be due in part to the popularity of two-step models of comprehension and evaluation in psychology. The core assumption of these models is that information must be comprehended first before it can be validated in a separate and subsequent step of information processing (Connell & Keane, 2006). This second step of validation is often described as voluntary, optional, and cognitively effortful (Gilbert,
TL;DR: This paper analyzed 34 cases of direct reported thought found in ordinary Korean conversations and found that reported thought serves as an interactional resource for participants to share their viewpoints and values, and the format of Korean reported thought, in which reporting frame devices appear after the quote, plays an important role in performing these actions in interaction.
Abstract: Analyses of 34 cases of direct reported thought found in ordinary Korean conversations illustrate a routine practice in the use of reported thought—reenacting a prior thought to demonstrate how the speaker's current stance originated. Often, such thoughts are not simply momentary, isolated thoughts in passing but are consequential thoughts that convey layers of the speaker's sense of values or viewpoints that matter in everyday life. Through reenacting her or his prior thought, in particular in a rhetorical question format, the speaker transforms a private thought into a public matter subject to other participants' collaborative stance-taking. Reported thought serves as an interactional resource for participants to share their viewpoints and values. The study also discusses how the format of Korean reported thought, in which reporting frame devices appear after the quote, plays an important role in performing these actions in interaction.
TL;DR: This paper explored how people express and interpret lexical cues of interaction involvement in dyadic conversations via instant messaging (IM) in two studies and found that use of personal pronouns, assent words, cognitive words, and definite articles were significant indicators of a participant's involvement.
Abstract: We explore how people express and interpret lexical cues of interaction involvement in dyadic conversations via instant messaging (IM) in two studies. In Study 1, an experiment with 60 participants, we manipulated level of involvement in a conversation with a distraction task. We examined how participants' uses of verbal cues such as pronouns were associated with their involvement in text-only IM conversations. We found that use of personal pronouns, assent words, cognitive words, and definite articles were significant indicators of a participant's involvement. In Study 2, an online survey with 50 participants, we examined how two lexical cues of involvement, personal pronouns and assent words, were perceived and interpreted. We found that communicators using few personal pronouns and many assent words were evaluated as more involved in their conversations. Our results contribute to theoretical development in computer-mediated communication and have implications for design of technologies to better suppor...
TL;DR: The authors compared the degree to which the linguistic interference that readers experience predicted reading ability in L1 and L2 reading ability and found that the relation was not mediated by individual differences in working memory capacity.
Abstract: Research on individual differences in second language (L2) reading ability has primarily focused on factors known to contribute to first language (L1) reading ability, with little consideration of factors mediating interference between languages. In an exploratory analysis, we compared the degree to which the linguistic interference that readers experience predicted reading ability in L1 and L2. Based on current psycholinguistic models, we also investigated whether the relation is mediated by working memory capacity. A series of regression analyses were performed to investigate these relations in 83 monolinguals, 50 L1 English-speaking bilinguals, and 127 L2 English-speaking bilinguals. Results revealed that the amount of linguistic interference experienced significantly predicted reading ability in L2 but not in L1 or for monolinguals. Further, the relation was not mediated by individual differences in working memory capacity. These results illustrate the need for consideration of cross-linguistic factor...
TL;DR: This article explored circumstances in which local information about characters' subjective representation of a goal mismatched global information about the goal's objective status and found that readers' judgments were affected both by global information of goal completion and character's subjective representations.
Abstract: Research has demonstrated that readers track the objective status of characters' goals (i.e., whether the goals have been completed). We suggest that readers also use characters' subjective representations—characters' mental states with respect to goals—to comprehend actions. We explored circumstances in which local information about characters' subjective representation of a goal mismatched global information about the goal's objective status. In Experiments 1 and 2, we found that reading times were always affected by local information about characters' subjective representations but were unaffected by global information about objective goal status. In Experiments 3a and 3b, we asked participants to make judgments about characters' actions. We found that readers' judgments were affected both by global information about goal completion and by characters' subjective representations. These studies provide evidence that readers attend to characters' subjective representations of their goals and that differen...
TL;DR: This paper explored the ability of synthetic manipulations of prosody to bias interpretation of discourse ambiguities where a first sentence is linked to two following sentences either by coordinating (Narration) or subordinating (Elaboration) discourse relations.
Abstract: Although significant attention has been devoted to prosody in discourse production, relatively little is known about prosody's effect on discourse interpretation. This article explores the ability of synthetic manipulations of prosody to bias interpretation of discourse ambiguities where a first sentence is linked to two following sentences either by coordinating (Narration) or subordinating (Elaboration) discourse relations. In Experiment 1, manipulations of pitch, pause duration, and intensity were found to influence discourse interpretation. In Experiment 2, subsets of these prosodic contrasts were compared. A bias for more coordination interpretations was found only for subsets with rising pitch at the end of the first sentence, including one where that was the only contrast, showing that rising pitch alone can disambiguate discourse. Participants also expressed more confidence when choosing a coordination interpretation after hearing a rise or a subordination interpretation after hearing a fall. Resu...
TL;DR: This article found that deaf novice readers are generally poor at processing linguistic markers of causal/temporal information (i.e., connectives), but what is unclear is whether this is indicative of a more general deficit in reasoning about temporal/causal information.
Abstract: Temporal and causal information in text are crucial in helping the reader form a coherent representation of a narrative Deaf novice readers are generally poor at processing linguistic markers of causal/temporal information (ie, connectives), but what is unclear is whether this is indicative of a more general deficit in reasoning about temporal/causal information In Study 1, 10 deaf and 63 hearing children, matched for comprehension ability and age, were compared on a range of tasks tapping temporal/causal reasoning skills In Study 2, 20 deaf and 32 hearing children, matched for age but not reading comprehension ability, were compared on revised versions of the tasks The pattern of performance of the deaf was different from that of the hearing; they had difficulties when temporal and causal reasoning was text-based, but not when it was nonverbal, indicating that their global temporal/causal reasoning skills are comparable with those of their hearing counterparts
TL;DR: Two experiments tested the possibility that the reduced activation seen from unlicensed negation would not persist beyond immediate testing, and demonstrated that these effects occur when negation is unlicensed but not when it is licensed.
Abstract: Negated words take longer to recognize than non-negated words following sentences with negation, suggesting that negated concepts are less active. The present experiments tested the possibility that this reduced activation would not persist beyond immediate testing. Experiment 1 used a probe task and materials similar to those used in previous research but manipulated the timing of the probe. The negation effect was present at 0 ms, replicating previous studies, but not at 500 ms or 1,000 ms, suggesting that unlicensed negated concepts are initially reduced in activation but then reactivated by presuppositional processing. Experiment 2 produced similar results when activation was measured during ongoing comprehension and reading time was controlled, and Experiment 3 demonstrated that these effects occur when negation is unlicensed but not when it is licensed. These findings are consistent with the hypothesis that the reduced activation seen from unlicensed negation is short-lived.
TL;DR: A processing model integrating segmented discourse representation theory's concept of the left/distant leaf with Grosz and Sidner's attentional and intentional model and Garrod and Sandford's focus framework model is proposed, suggesting an important role for working memory and emphasizing the different production modes of readers and writers.
Abstract: The existing literature presents conflicting models of how this and that access different segments of a written discourse, frequently relying on implicit analogies with spoken discourse On the basis of this literature, we hypothesized that in written discourse, this more readily accesses the adjacent/right frontier of a preceding chunk of text, whereas that more readily accesses the distant/left We tested this hypothesis in two eye-tracking experiments, one sentence completion experiment, and one corpus study Our results showed that both this and that access the adjacent frontier more easily than the distant Contrary to existing theories, this accessed the distant frontier more frequently and easily than that We propose a processing model integrating segmented discourse representation theory's concept of the left/distant leaf with Grosz and Sidner's attentional and intentional model and Garrod and Sandford's focus framework model, suggesting an important role for working memory and emphasizing the di
TL;DR: The authors examined preschoolers' acquisition of the maxims of the Cooperative Principle and the sociocognitive scaffolds that support this acquisition and found that children consistently identified violations of the cooperative principle and their performance improved with age.
Abstract: This study examines preschoolers' acquisition of the maxims of the Cooperative Principle and the sociocognitive scaffolds that support this acquisition. In Study 1, 84 children between 3 and 5 years old were required to make passive judgments of violations of the Cooperative Principle. Results showed that children consistently identified violations of the Cooperative Principle and their performance improved with age. In Study 2, a subgroup of 38 children between 3 and 4 years old completed a standard false belief (Theory of Mind) task. Both groups identified violations of the Cooperative Principle at a level better than chance, although neither age group passed the false belief task at a level better than chance. This study joins previous research in placing the emergence of the Cooperative Principle in the preschool years. Results also suggest that false belief understanding is not a prerequisite for recognizing violated maxims of the Cooperative Principle in routine conversational exchanges.
TL;DR: This article examined the extent to which instructional manipulations modify dimension monitoring during reading and whether this affects comprehension, and found that reading times increase for changes in time, space, characters, goals, and causation.
Abstract: During narrative comprehension, reading times increase for changes in time, space, characters, goals, and causation. This study examined the extent to which instructional manipulations modify dimension monitoring during reading and whether this affects comprehension. Sixty-seven participants read three narratives (pretest). Half of the participants (the experimental group) were then instructed to simultaneously monitor changes in time, space, characters, goals, and causation. All participants then read three more narratives (post-test). After reading all texts, participants retold each story and answered comprehension questions. At post-test, the reading times for participants in the experimental group increased for changes in time, space, goals, and causation. Participants in the experimental group remembered more story information containing dimension changes compared with a control group (no instructional manipulation). However, participants in experimental and control groups did not differ in terms of...