Predictive Inference Generation as a Function of Working Memory Capacity and Causal Text Constraints

Linderholm, Tracy

doi:10.1207/s15326950dp3403_2

Cited by 85 publications

(96 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In Experiment 2, however, low span participants showed no differential effect of pronoun mismatch, and the Nref effect hinged on high span participants. Notably, high span readers are more likely to elaborate their discourse models with optional, knowledge-based inferences than low span readers, whereas low span readers are more likely to entertain shallow representations of the discourse and are less inclined to resolve ambiguity (e.g., Linderholm, 2002 The fact that only high span individuals consistently showed Nref effects suggests that the Nref may reflect a more effortful attempt to establish a referentially coherent interpretation. Under this interpretation, low span readers in Experiment 2 may have noticed gender mismatch, but neither attempted to infer the intended referent nor assumed that the pronoun had the wrong gender.…”

Section: Unknown Referents and The Nrefmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Who’s he?” Event-related brain potentials and unbound pronouns

Nieuwland

2014

Journal of Memory and Language

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Section: Unknown Referents and The Nrefmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Who’s he?” Event-related brain potentials and unbound pronouns

Nieuwland

2014

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…Although the concept and measurement of working memory capacity remains a topic of debate (e.g., Caplan and Waters, 1999;Engle, 2002;MacDonald and Christiansen, 2002;Waters and Caplan, 1996), there is a wealth of data suggesting that individuals who perform better on a typical verbal working memory task like the Reading Span task also perform better on both off-line and on-line measures of language comprehension (e.g., Just and Carpenter, 1992). One of the general findings on the relationship between Reading Span score and language comprehension is that high span readers are more likely to elaborate their discourse models with optional, knowledge-based inferences than low span readers (e.g., Calvo, 2001;Linderholm, 2002;St. George et al, 1997;Whitney et al, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Individual differences and contextual bias in pronoun resolution: Evidence from ERPs

2006

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Although we usually have no trouble finding the right antecedent for a pronoun, the coreference relations between pronouns and antecedents in everyday language are often 'formally' ambiguous. But a pronoun is only really ambiguous if a reader or listener indeed perceives it to be ambiguous. Whether this is the case may depend on at least two factors: the language processing skills of an individual reader, and the contextual bias towards one particular referential interpretation. In the current study, we used event related brain potentials (ERPs) to explore how both these factors affect the resolution of referentially ambiguous pronouns. We compared ERPs elicited by formally ambiguous and non-ambiguous pronouns that were embedded in simple sentences (e.g., "Jennifer Lopez told Madonna that she had too much money."). Individual differences in language processing skills were assessed with the Reading Span task, while the contextual bias of each sentence (up to the critical pronoun) had been assessed in a referential cloze pretest. In line with earlier research, ambiguous pronouns elicited a sustained, frontal negative shift relative to non-ambiguous pronouns at the group-level.The size of this effect was correlated with Reading Span score, as well as with contextual bias. These results suggest that whether a reader perceives a formally ambiguous pronoun to be ambiguous is subtly co-determined by both individual language processing skills and contextual bias. IntroductionAlmost no conversation goes by without somebody using a pronoun to refer to some object, action or individual. Pronouns are our linguistic 'short-cuts' for maintaining reference to topics that are in the focus of our conversation. In fact, comprehending pronouns is such common practice, we usually feel as if we understand their antecedents immediately (e.g., Clark and Sengul, 1979). Interestingly, we generally do not even notice that the co-reference relations between pronouns and their antecedents in everyday language are often 'formally' ambiguous, that is, when the linguistic features of a pronoun (e.g., male/female, singular/ plural) by itself do not warrant the retrieval of a unique antecedent. For instance, given the sentence-fragment "Bruce Willis hated Al Pacino because he…", most people will automatically take 'Al Pacino' as the antecedent of 'he' (as the most likely continuation of this sentence will describe the characteristics of Al Pacino which he was hated for), even though 'he' might, in principle, also refer to 'Bruce Willis'. In

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“…Results of numerous studies (Calvo, 2001(Calvo, , 2004Estévez & Calvo, 2000;Linderholm, 2002;Singer, Andrusiak, Reisdorf, & Black, 1992;Singer & Ritchot, 1996) support the idea that interpersonal differences in inferential activity are determined by variables cognitive processing and therefore, this paper assumes that there is a causal relationship between the ability to remember and the inference generation, or at least there is a relative contribution of this factor.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 59%

Study of Recall in Reading Skill with Relationship of Prior Knowledge–Researching Significative Intergrupal Differencies

Pino¹,

Llorent²,

Millán³

2013

IES

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In this paper we try to assess whether there are differences in a group when their members try to remember the content of a text, and if this fact affects the learning levels through an experimental methodology with a design of two groups only with posttest to assess the readers' free recall after reading a text. We found firstly interindividual and intergroup differences in recall of textual material. And secondly text comprehension and therefore the memory of the reading depend largely on reader's inferences. In this paper we propose a specific intervention in order to prepare students for a better understanding of the text read, using a simple methodology to apply with materials easy to prepare.

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Predictive Inference Generation as a Function of Working Memory Capacity and Causal Text Constraints

Cited by 85 publications

References 23 publications

“Who’s he?” Event-related brain potentials and unbound pronouns

“Who’s he?” Event-related brain potentials and unbound pronouns

Individual differences and contextual bias in pronoun resolution: Evidence from ERPs

Study of Recall in Reading Skill with Relationship of Prior Knowledge–Researching Significative Intergrupal Differencies

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