Forward Inferences in Narrative Text

Murray, John D.; Klin, Celia M.; Myers, Jerome L.

doi:10.1006/jmla.1993.1025

Cited by 135 publications

(106 citation statements)

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“…Coherence inferences are more likely than predictive inferences to be incorporated for several reasons: They are reactivated or reinforced by multiple parts of the story; they are probably more in focus and more important to the causal chain of the story; and comprehenders are more motivated to make these inferences that are, by definition, necessary to maintain coherence. Priming for predictive inferences has been observed previously (e.g., Calvo & Castillo, 1996;Keefe & McDaniel, 1993;Murray et al, 1993). The priming obtained at predictive points (1) and (2) appear large, numerically, compared to other effects observed in the literature.…”

supporting

confidence: 64%

“…In contrast, there has been some debate about whether predictive inferences are drawn (see, e.g., Fincher-Kiefer, 1995;Garrod, O'Brien, Morris, & Rayner, 1990;Graesser et al, 1994;Keefe & McDaniel, 1993;McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992;Murray, Klin, & Myers, 1993;St. George, Mannes, & Hoffman, 1997;Whitney, Ritchie, & Clark, 1991).…”

Section: Predictive and Coherence Inferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…People recognize test words related to coherence inferences as rapidly as they recognize test words explicitly stated in the story (e.g., Potts et al, 1988), whether recognition is measured by lexical decision or naming latency (Keenan, Golding, Potts, Jennings, & Aman, 1989;Potts et al, 1988). In addition, people recognize words related to coherence inferences faster after comprehending sentences implying these inferences than they do after sentences that do not imply inferences (Potts et al, 1988).In contrast, there has been some debate about whether predictive inferences are drawn (see, e.g., Fincher-Kiefer, 1995;Garrod, O'Brien, Morris, & Rayner, 1990;Graesser et al, 1994;Keefe & McDaniel, 1993;McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992;Murray, Klin, & Myers, 1993;St. George, Mannes, & Hoffman, 1997;Whitney, Ritchie, & Clark, 1991).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The diffuse activation and further coarse semantic coding by the RH make it difficult for the RH alone to select this information for further processing, such as incorporation into the mental representation of the discourse. Indeed, there is ample evidence that predictive inferences are not completed as readily as coherence inferences (cf., Murray et al, 1993). For instance, comprehenders are slower to answer questions about predictive inferences than questions about coherence inferences or explicitly mentioned information (Singer & Ferreira, 1983).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Various characteristics of the story (length, episodic structure, ease of referential connectiveness), the inference (degree of predictability, causal importance, focus, number of connections to the story), and the compre-hender (working memory capacity, motivation) can affect which inferences are activated and/or incorporated (Graesser & Bertus, 1998;McKoon & Ratcliff, 1992;Murray et al, 1993;O'Brien et al, 1988;St. George et al, 1997;Singer et al, 1997;Whitney et al, 1991;Whitney, Ritchie, & Crane, 1992).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Right and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension

Beeman¹,

Bowden²,

2000

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In three experiments, healthy young participants listened to stories promoting inferences and named inference-related test words presented to the right visual field-Left Hemisphere (rvf-LH) or to the left visual field-Right Hemisphere (lvf-RH). Participants showed priming for predictive inferences only for target words presented to the lvf-RH; in contrast, they showed priming for coherence inferences only for target words presented to the rvf-LH. These results, plus the fact that patients with RH brain damage have difficulty drawing coherence inferences and do not show inference-related priming, suggest that information capable of supporting predictive inferences is more likely to be initially activated in the RH than the LH, but following coherence breaks these concepts (now coherence inferences) are completed in the LH. These results are consistent with the theory that the RH engages in relatively coarse semantic coding, which aids full comprehension of discourse.When people comprehend stories, they often make inferences -they assume that some events occurred in the stories, even though those events were not explicitly described. Consider what happens when people read or hear the premise that "The shuttle sat on the ground in the distance, waiting for the signal to be given." If they later read or hear a sentence with a coherence break, that is a sentence that interrupts the logical chain of a story, such as "After a huge roar and a bright flash, the shuttle disappeared into space leaving clouds of smoke in its wake," most people infer that the shuttle was launched. As established decades ago, once comprehenders make inferences, they include these inferences when recalling stories (Glenn, 1978;Paris & Lindauer, 1976;Baggett, 1975), and they have a difficult time distinguishing inferred information from information explicitly stated (Johnson, Bransford, & Solomon, 1973). This suggests that normal comprehenders incorporate some inferences into their representation of the discourse. HHS Public Access Author Manuscript Author ManuscriptAuthor Manuscript Author ManuscriptSome RH-damaged (RHD) patients have difficulty drawing inferences, suggesting that the right hemisphere (RH) may play an important role when comprehenders draw such inferences (Beeman, 1993;Brownell, Potter, Bihrle, & Gardner, 1986). The following experiments explore the idea that concepts necessary for supporting inferences are more likely to be initially activated in the RH than in the LH and that at the coherence break inferences are more likely to be selected-activated strongly enough to reach awareness, to be processed further, or to be output, in the sense proposed by Allport (1987) -in the LH for incorporation into the discourse representation (Beeman, 1993). PREDICTIVE AND COHERENCE INFERENCESIn principle, comprehenders could draw several types of inferences. Comprehenders could make inferences to embellish or elaborate on a story. They could draw inferences to predict upcoming consequences. For example, as soon as people hear tha...

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supporting

confidence: 64%

Section: Predictive and Coherence Inferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Right and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension

Beeman¹,

Bowden²,

2000

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Psycholinguistics

Clark

Wege

2002

Stevens' Handbook of Experimental Psychology

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Psycholinguistics in the study of how people process language. People use spoken language to coordinate such joint activities as business transactions, story telling, and planning. In doing so, they work turn by turn, relying on adjacency pairs, such as question plus answer, or assertion plus acknowledgment, and they ground what is said as they proceed. Speaking itself is a process with overlapping stages. For each utterance, speakers decide on a message, select the concepts and syntactic frame required for that message, assemble these in an appropriate order, formulate a phonological code, and then articulate the right sounds. Listeners, for their part, take in these sounds segment by segment. They narrow down on words and phrases instantly as these become specified uniquely in the context. Listeners rely on pragmatic information not only in this process, but also in filling conceptual gaps in their understanding with bridging and elaborative inferences. The words people use are stored in a mental lexicon as entries with conventional meanings. But in talking face‐to‐face, people also use gestures—such as emblems, iconic gestures, and pointing—which they coordinate with their words. People also create broader models of the situations being spoken about. These models represent such things as visual and spatial features of the situations, cultural schemas, and mental simulations of imagined scenes and events.

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Psychology

Imhof¹

2020

The Handbook of Listening

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Forward Inferences in Narrative Text

Cited by 135 publications

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Right and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension

Right and Left Hemisphere Cooperation for Drawing Predictive and Coherence Inferences during Normal Story Comprehension

Psycholinguistics

Psychology

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