Need metaphoric comprehension take longer than literal comprehension?

To determine if metaphoric comprehension necessarily depends upon a more complex process than literal comprehension, 120 subjects in six different experiments were asked to code a series of sentences into one of the following logical sentence categories: analytic, synthetic, contradictory, anomalous, and metaphoric. Prior to this task, all subjects were given practice in learning to code examples of each of the various categories. Results of the present set of experiments revealed few systematic differences among the various categories in RT and a high degree of consistency in coding patterns across both the learning and RT phases of the experiments. Although procedural variations introduced for purposes of control produced clear and easily understandable changes in RT, coding patterns were essentially unchanged across the various experiments, suggesting that none of the categories could be considered as logically more basic than any other. The results were discussed in terms of contemporary semantic theory, where it was suggested that metaphoric recognition need not be conceptualized as depending on a more inferential level of semantic processing than literal recognition and that future theories must be more context-sensitive than those currently in fashion.     

Does verb structure affect sentence comprehension?

Fodor, Garrett, and Bever have reported two experiments suggesting that sentences containing complex verbs are more difficult to comprehend than ones containing simple verbs. However, the tasks they used, paraphrasing and anagram solving, reflect comprehension difficulty only very indirectly. Both of the present experiments compared the difficulty of sentences containing simple and complex verbs using the paraphrasing task and also a task that assesses on-line comprehension difficulty, phoneme monitoring. The paraphrasing task yielded the predicted effect in Experiment 1 but not in Experiment 2. The phoneme monitoring task failed to yield the effect in either experiment. Two alternative accounts were suggested for the present data as well as those of Fodor et al.     

Topic—vehicle interaction in metaphor comprehension

Property comparison models of metaphor comprehension assume that the topic and vehicle terms in metaphors are both understood to be referring to their conventional literal referents. In contrast, the interactive property attribution model (Glucksberg, McGlone, & Manfredi, 1997) assumes that the vehicle is understood to be referring to a metaphoric category that includes the topic's literal referent as a member. A priming paradigm was used to test the implications of these different models. Prior to interpreting a metaphor, participants read (1) the topic or vehicle concept alone, (2) a sentence ascribing a metaphor-relevant property to one concept, or (3) a sentence ascribing a metaphor-irrelevant property to one concept. All of the prime types facilitated metaphor comprehension with the exception of sentences ascribing metaphor-irrelevant properties to vehicles. The failure of these sentences (but not their topic counterparts) to facilitate metaphor comprehension is attributable to their priming an inappropriate literal interpretation of the vehicle term. These results are consistent with the claim that irrelevant information is suppressed during language comprehension (Gernsbacher, 1990) and support the interactive property attribution model.     

Visual narrative comprehension: Universal or not?

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review - Visual narratives of sequential images – as found in comics, picture stories, and storyboards – are often thought to provide a fairly universal and...     

Can brain stimulation improve semantic joke comprehension?

ABSTRACT

Semantic humour involves a deviation from lexico-semantic rules that introduces ambiguity into interpretation of a situation. The left Inferior Frontal Gyrus (IFG) has been implicated in humour processing (e.g. semantic puns, ambiguity resolution). The present study aimed to examine whether transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the left IFG would enhance semantic ambiguity resolution. In two sessions, fifteen participants aged 20–35 years received either offline anodal tDCS or sham stimulation for 20?min, after which they read semantically ambiguous humorous sentences, literal (non-ambiguous) sentences, and meaningless sentences, and then performed a semantic judgment task relating to each sentence’s final word. Results showed that ambiguity resolution requires longer processing than literality. However, left IFG stimulation was ineffective in increasing ambiguity resolution. Researchers should target different brain areas in both hemispheres to further explore humour comprehension.     

Readers’ use of source information in text comprehension

In two experiments, we examined the role of discrepancy on readers’ text processing of and memory for the sources of brief news reports. Each story included two assertions that were attributed to different sources. We manipulated whether the second assertion was either discrepant or consistent with the first assertion. On the basis of the discrepancy-induced source comprehension (D-ISC) assumption, we predicted that discrepant stories would promote deeper processing and better memory for the sources conveying the messages, as compared to consistent stories. As predicted, readers mentioned more sources in summaries of discrepant stories, recalled more sources, made more fixations, and displayed longer gaze times in source areas when reading discrepant than when reading consistent stories. In Experiment 2, we found enhanced memory for source–content links for discrepant stories even when intersentential connectors were absent, and regardless of the reading goals. Discussion was focused on discrepancies as one mechanism by which readers are prompted to encode source–content links more deeply, as a method of integrating disparate pieces of information into a coherent mental representation of a text.     

Effort toward comprehension: Elaboration or “aha”?

Auble and Franks (1978) found that a process termed “effort toward comprehension” was important in facilitating recall of sentences. Four experiments were conducted to further elucidate the nature of this process. Two hypotheses were considered: (1)Effort toward comprehension involves greater elaboration or deeper processing of the sentence; (2)effort toward comprehension can be viewed as an “aha” experience (i.e., a state of noncomprehension followed by comprehension of the sentence). Results indicated that recall was significantly greater for subjects in conditions producing “aha” reactions. No support was found for the elaboration interpretation of effort toward comprehension.     

Auditory comprehension: is multiple choice really good enough?

Auditory comprehension is commonly measured with multiple choice tasks. The sensitivity of these tasks in identifying deficits, however, is limited by credit given for correct guesses by forced choice. In this study, we compare performance on the multiple choice task to an alternative word/picture verification task, in 122 subjects with acute left hemisphere stroke. As predicted, word/picture verification identifies significantly more subjects with deficits in auditory comprehension. Furthermore, the pattern of errors in the two tasks is consistent with a current distributed model of semantic memory, and inconsistent with alternative local models.     

Is comprehension of problem solutions resistant to misleading heuristic cues?

Previous studies in the domain of metacomprehension judgments have primarily used expository texts. When these texts include illustrations, even uninformative ones, people were found to judge that they understand their content better. The present study aimed to delineate the metacognitive processes involved in understanding problem solutions — a text type often perceived as allowing reliable judgments regarding understanding, and was not previously considered from a metacognitive perspective. Undergraduate students faced difficult problems. They then studied solution explanations with or without uninformative illustrations and provided judgments of comprehension (JCOMPs). Learning was assessed by application to near-transfer problems in an open-book test format. As expected, JCOMPs were polarized — they tended to reflect good or poor understanding. Yet, JCOMPs were higher for the illustrated solutions and even high certainty did not ensure resistance to this effect. Moreover, success in the transfer problems was lower in the presence of illustrations, demonstrating a bias stronger than that found with expository texts. Previous studies have suggested that weak learners are especially prone to being misled by superficial cues. In the present study, matching the difficulty of the task to the ability of the target population revealed that even highly able participants were not immune to misleading cues. The study extends previous findings regarding potential detrimental effects of illustrations and highlights aspects of the metacomprehension process that have not been considered before.     

When do spatial abilities support student comprehension of STEM visualizations?

Spatial visualization abilities are positively related to performance on science, technology, engineering, and math tasks, but this relationship is influenced by task demands and learner strategies. In two studies, we illustrate these interactions by demonstrating situations in which greater spatial ability leads to problematic performance. In Study 1, chemistry students observed and explained sets of simultaneously presented displays depicting chemical phenomena at macroscopic and particulate levels of representation. Prior to viewing, the students were asked to make predictions at the macroscopic level. Eye movement analyses revealed that greater spatial ability was associated with greater focus on the prediction-relevant macroscopic level. Unfortunately, that restricted focus was also associated with lower-quality explanations of the phenomena. In Study 2, we presented the same displays but manipulated whether participants were asked to make predictions prior to viewing. Spatial ability was again associated with restricted focus, but only for students who completed the prediction task. Eliminating the prediction task encouraged attempts to integrate the displays that related positively to performance, especially for participants with high spatial ability. Spatial abilities can be recruited in effective or ineffective ways depending on alignments between the demands of a task and the approaches individuals adopt for completing that task.     

Neurological origins of poor reading comprehension despite fast word decoding?

Barnes, Faulkner, and Dennis (2001) found that hydrocephalic children (mean age = 11.5 years) of average or above-average verbal intelligence exhibit poor reading comprehension despite their fast and accurate decoding skills on individual words. This finding attracts the attention of reading researchers because it appears to be against the following standard principle of reading comprehension failure (Gough & Hillinger, 1980), thereby provoking basic issues centering around it (e.g., Stanovich, 1991): Reading Comprehension = Word Decoding x Listening Comprehension. This formula indicates that when listening comprehension is kept well within the normal range, reading comprehension is highly correlated with word decoding (e.g., Perfetti, 1985). In contrast, with poor listening comprehension children would be poor readers however good they may be at reading words (e.g., Cain, Oakhill, & Bryant, 2000). Although Barnes et al. clearly demonstrated that children with hydrocephalus decoded individual words better than they comprehended text, it is not readily apparent whether their findings are inconsistent with the standard principle. The purpose of the present article is twofold. The first is to examine whether Barnes et al.'s findings constitute a counterexample of the above principle. (Note that Barnes et al. did not address this question.) The second and more important purpose is to discuss the possible origins of the decoding-better-than-sentence/text-comprehension pattern. We also present some pedagogical implications for poor readers such as hydrocephalic children.     

Do irrelevant depth cues affect the comprehension of bar graphs?

Eight participants decided whether two‐ or three‐dimensional bars embedded within two‐ or three‐dimensional frames were semantically consistent with written inequalities of the form ‘A>B’. Inequalities were presented either before (Experiment 1) or after the graphs (Experiment 2). In Experiment 1, irrelevant depth cues were associated with slower decision times and there was no processing cost associated with an inconsistency between the dimensionalities of bars and frames. Memory encoding and retrieval times in Experiment 2 were affected by both graph complexity and consistency. Neither a depth consistency heuristic nor the maximum ink–data ratio principle can account for these results. More appropriate guidance for graph design will come from elaborating the working memory component of current cognitive models of graph processing. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Seeing a singer helps comprehension of the song’s lyrics

When listening to speech, we often benefit when also seeing the speaker’s face. If this advantage is not domain specific for speech, the recognition of sung lyrics should also benefit from seeing the singer’s face. By independently varying the sight and sound of the lyrics, we found a substantial comprehension benefit of seeing a singer. This benefit was robust across participants, lyrics, and repetition of the test materials. This benefit was much larger than the benefit for sung lyrics obtained in previous research, which had not provided the visual information normally present in singing. Given that the comprehension of sung lyrics benefits from seeing the singer, just like speech comprehension benefits from seeing the speaker, both speech and music perception appear to be multisensory processes.     

Factors influencing drivers’ reading and comprehension of on-board traffic messages

IntroductionWhen variable message signs (VMS) or on-board traffic information systems are used, it is essential that while driving, motorists read and understand the information as soon as possible in order to make appropriate decisions to increase road safety and/or facilitate traffic flow. Thus, it is important to investigate the factors that may increase fast reading and comprehension of on-board traffic information.ObjectivesWe examined the influence of the type of message (warnings vs. recommendations), location of the pictogram (top or bottom of the text), type of display device (IPhone, Blackberry, or Tablet) and its position (horizontal or vertical) on drivers’ fast reading and comprehension of on-board messages provided via in-vehicle system. Moreover, we were interested in drivers’ acceptability of in-vehicle system.MethodForty-nine drivers (M_Men = 32, 19–65 years) participated to a reading and comprehension task while travelling on a desktop driving simulator. Participants were exposed to two series of 11 traffic messages displayed on one of the three devices. Reading and comprehension times were measured (= milliseconds) for each message. At the end, they had to fill in a questionnaire on their beliefs about on-board traffic messages and in-vehicle system.ResultsDrivers expressed a positive attitude toward on-board traffic messages and in-vehicle system. Reading and comprehension times were of approximately 4 seconds and were longer for warnings as compared to recommendations. The pictogram placed at the top of the text, the tablet and the vertical display device facilitated fast reading and comprehension.     

Does morphology make the difference? Agrammatic sentence comprehension in German

This study examines the syntactic comprehension of seven German agrammatic speakers. The German language allows the study of the interaction of syntactic principles and morphological devices in the comprehension process. In addition, due to its relatively free word order, German allows the study of strictly minimal pairs of canonical and non-canonical sentences in addition to the rather controversial active-passive contrast. A central research question was whether the pattern of agrammatic comprehension predicted by the trace deletion hypothesis (TDH, Grodzinsky, 1990, 1995), relatively normal comprehension performance of canonical sentences and chance performance on non-canonical sentences, can be found in a language with richer morphology than English. The generalisability of the TDH-pattern to morphologically rich languages is not obvious, given that case morphology in particular can provide explicit cues to the detection of the agent and patient roles in a sentence. The results of this study indicate that morphology does not make a difference. Furthermore, the group results are in line with the TDH-predictions only for number marked sentences but not for case marked sentences. However, single case analysis reveals different patterns of syntactic comprehension in agrammatic patients, a spectrum that encompasses near-normal comprehension of canonical and non-canonical sentences, overall chance performance, and TDH-like profiles.     

Does "pure" phonemic awareness training affect reading comprehension?

The six studies found concerning the effect of pure phonemic awareness training (without phonics) on reading comprehension gave a positive but modest overall effect size in favor of phonemic awareness training. Four studies had small samples, two showed no or very small effect sizes, and one inconsistent results. Three involved languages other than English. Such results do not support the popular movement for universal phonemic awareness training.     

Do people use language production to make predictions during comprehension?

We present the case that language comprehension involves making simultaneous predictions at different linguistic levels and that these predictions are generated by the language production system. Recent research suggests that ease of comprehending predictable elements is due to prediction rather than facilitated integration, and that comprehension is accompanied by covert imitation. We argue that comprehenders use prediction and imitation to construct an "emulator", using the production system, and combine predictions with the input dynamically. Such a process helps to explain the rapidity of comprehension and the robust interpretation of ambiguous or noisy input. This framework is in line with a general trend in cognitive science to incorporate action systems into perceptual systems and has broad implications for understanding the links between language production and comprehension.     

Text comprehension in middle aged adults: is there anything wrong?

Two experiments tested text comprehension skills in adults varying in age from 20 to 69 years. A coherence judgment task (n = 39), in which the pragmatic connection of two sentences had to be evaluated, did not yield any age effects. Both error rates and reaction times were largely independent of age. In a word recognition paradigm (n = 60), testing the strength of different text representation levels, there was a gradual, linear decrease in performance with age, accompanied by a similarly gradual increase in processing times. The results confirm that aging affects comprehension under high memory demands, but spares the conceptual, situation-based levels. Most importantly, it was shown that these changes become apparent during middle age already. Implications for education and neuropsychology are discussed.