Acquisition-test interactions between

The effects of changes in context on recognition memory were investigated in two experiments. In Experiment 1 target items were embedded in congruous or incongruous sentence frames and then tested in the original, new congruous, or new incongruous contexts. Experiment 2 included a third encoding condition; targets were also embedded in abstract definitional sentences. Both experiments revealed a reliable crossover interaction between the initial encoding condition and the mode of the changed context. Congruous items were recognized better in new congruous contexts, whereas incongruous items were recognized better in new incongruous contexts. Recognition of definitional items was equally impaired by both context changes. The results suggest the importance of the symmetry between acquisition and test encoding dimensions. These experiments also point out the need to distinguish between different ways in which the concept “integration” is used in current research.     

The role of test procedure in linguistic integration studies

The effects of type of recognition test procedure were studied in a Bransford and Franks (1971) integration paradigm. Subjects received a two-alternative forced-choice recognition test or a modified “forced-choice” test in which all the sentences for each idea set were presented at once and the “old” sentences had to be identified. Contrary to the usual Bransford and Franks results, in which a yes-no, one-sentence-at-a-time recognition procedure is employed, the ability to discriminate “old” sentences from “new” sentences was clearly observed. A bias for selecting more complex sentences, however, was found for the modified “forced-choice” procedure. A prototype learning model is described to account for these results and previous data.     

Semantic context influences memory for verbs more than memory for nouns

Three experiments revealed that memory for verbs is more dependent on semantic context than is memory for nouns. The participants in Experiment 1 were asked to remember either nouns or verbs from intransitive sentences. A recognition test included verbatim sentences, sentences with an old noun and a new verb, sentences with an old verb and a new noun, and entirely new sentences. Memory for verbs was significantly better when the verb was presented with the same noun at encoding and at retrieval. This contextual effect was much smaller for nouns. Experiments 2 and 3 replicated this effect and provided evidence that context effects reflect facilitation from bringing to mind the same meaning of a verb at encoding and at retrieval. Memory for verbs may be more dependent on semantic context because the meanings of verbs are more variable across semantic contexts than are the meanings of nouns.     

The role of prior context in the comprehension of abstract and concrete sentences

Summary In two experiments the hypothesis was tested that abstract sentences become as easy to understand as concrete sentences when given appropriate prior context. Paragraph contexts and sentences followed by a comprehension question were presented in a speeded reading task. The results showed that the abstract sentences remained significantly more difficult to process than the concrete sentences in both experiments. The hypothesis that the concreteness effect is a function of differential context availability was therefore not supported. It was proposed that lexical differences and/or differences in ease of propositional integration may underlie the effect.     

Inhibitory processes and spoken word recognition in young and older adults: the interaction of lexical competition and semantic context.

Two experiments were conducted to examine the importance of inhibitory abilities and semantic context to spoken word recognition in older and young adults. In Experiment 1, identification scores were obtained in 3 contexts: single words, low-predictability sentences, and high-predictability sentences. Additionally, identification performance was examined as a function of neighborhood density (number of items phonetically similar to a target word). Older adults had greater difficulty than young adults recognizing words with many neighbors (hard words). However, older adults also exhibited greater benefits as a result of adding contextual information. Individual differences in inhibitory abilities contributed significantly to recognition performance for lexically hard words but not for lexically easy words. The roles of inhibitory abilities and linguistic knowledge in explaining age-related impairments in spoken word recognition are discussed.     

Lexical decision in sentences: Effects of syntactic structure

A lexical decision paradigm was used to examine syntactic influence on word recognition in sentences. Initial fragments of sentences were presented visually (CRT display) one word at a time (at reading speeds), from left to right. The string terminated with the appearance of a lexical decision target. The grammatical structure of the incomplete sentence affected lexical decision reaction time (RT). In Experiment 1, modal verb contexts followed by main verb targets and preposition contexts followed by noun targets produced lower RTs than did the opposite pairings (i.e., modal/noun and preposition/verb). In Experiment 2, transitive verb contexts followed by noun targets and subject noun phrase contexts followed by verb targets yielded lower RTs than did the opposite pairings. Similar contrasts for adjective targets did not yield comparable effects in Experiment 2, but did when the adjective was the head of a predictable phrase (Experiment 4). In Experiment 3, noun targets yielded lower RTs than did verb targets after contexts of a transitive verb followed by a prepositional phrase. An account of these effects is offered in terms of parsing constraints on phrasal categories.     

The role of some definite references in linguistic integration

Definite reference increases thematic integration for semantically related sentences (DeVilliers, 1974). Therefore, definite reference should increase linguistic integration in the Bransford-Franks integrated recognition paradigm. Two recognition and two recall studies demonstrated that, if anything, indefinite reference increases linguistic integration effects, as measured by existing measures of integration. However, definite reference increases topical clustering in recall. Results cast doubt on the validity of existing measures of linguistic integration and indicate that the tally model of performance in integrated recognition tasks (Reitman & Bower, 1973) is not totally adequate, either. Results are compatible with the associative model of Anderson and Bower (1973). Topical clustering appears to be a better measure of integrated memory than are existing measures of linguistic integration. Retention of information about the propositional form in which semantically related sentences are presented and integrated memory are not necessarily incompatible.     

Measuring local context as context–word probabilities

Context enables readers to quickly recognize a related word but disturbs recognition of unrelated words. The relatedness of a final word to a sentence context has been estimated as the probability (cloze probability) that a participant will complete a sentence with a word. In four studies, I show that it is possible to estimate local context-word relatedness based on common language usage. Conditional probabilities were calculated for sentences with published cloze probabilities. Four-word contexts produced conditional probabilities significantly correlated with cloze probabilities, but usage statistics were unavailable for some sentence contexts. The present studies demonstrate that a composite context measure based on conditional probabilities for one- to four-word contexts and the presence of a final period represents all of the sentences and maintains significant correlations (.25, .52, .53) with cloze probabilities. Finally, the article provides evidence for the effectiveness of this measure by showing that local context varies in ways that are similar to the N400 effect and that are consistent with a role for local context in reading. The Supplemental materials include local context measures for three cloze probability data sets.     

Individual differences in cognitive style,working memory,and semantic integration

In two experiments subjects classified as being either high or low in field articulation (FA) performed a semantic integration task with high-information load. In Experiment 1, differences in performance between high- and low-FA subjects on an inference and recognition test were obtained when sentences were presented for 5 sec a piece but not when they were presented for 10 sec a piece. In Experiment 2, performance differences between high and low-FA subjects were eliminated by presenting only a specific subset of the sentences for 10 sec a piece. The implications of these results for explanations of FA effects in semantic integration are discussed.     

Word associations are formed incidentally during sentential semantic integration

Sentential context facilitates the incidental formation of word associations (e.g., Prior, A., & Bentin, S. (2003). Incidental formation of episodic associations: the importance of sentential context. Memory and Cognition, 31(2), 306-316). The present study explored the mechanism of this effect. In two experiments, unrelated word pairs were embedded in coherent or semantically anomalous sentences. Anomalous sentences included either a local or a global anomaly. During an incidental study phase, participants performed a sentence categorization task. The strength of the incidental associations formed between two nouns jointly appearing in a sentence was probed by gauging their influence on subsequent paired-associate learning and cued recall in Experiment 1, and by assessing their associative priming effect in a subsequent unexpected explicit recognition test for single words in Experiment 2. In both experiments, significant associative memory was found for noun pairs studied in coherent sentences but not for those appearing in anomalous sentences, regardless of anomaly type. In a sentence rating task, global anomalies yielded less plausible sentences than local anomalies, however both types of anomalies were equally detrimental to the sentence integration process. We suggest that sentence constituents are incidentally associated during sentence processing, particularly as a result of sentence integration and the consolidation of a mental model.     

Learning Words Via Reading: Contextual Diversity,Spacing, and Retrieval Effects in Adults

We examined whether variations in contextual diversity, spacing, and retrieval practice influenced how well adults learned new words from reading experience. Eye movements were recorded as adults read novel words embedded in sentences. In the learning phase, unfamiliar words were presented either in the same sentence repeated four times (same context) or in four different sentences (diverse context). Spacing was manipulated by presenting the sentences under distributed or non‐distributed practice. After learning, half of the participants were asked to retrieve the new words, and half had an extra exposure to the new words. Although words experienced in diverse contexts were acquired more slowly during learning, they enjoyed a greater benefit of learning at immediate posttest. Distributed practice also slowed learning, but no benefit was observed at posttest. Although participants who had an extra exposure showed the greatest learning benefit overall, learning also benefited from retrieval opportunity, when words were experienced in diverse contexts. These findings demonstrate that variation in the content and structure of the learning environment impacts on word learning via reading.     

Remembering operations

Two commonplace assumptions about encoding are that sentences are encoded and recognized on the basis of their semantic features primarily and that information regarding form features such as typography is typically ignored or discarded. These assumptions were tested m the present experiment where, within a signal-detection paradigm, S sorted sentences according to whether he had seen them before or not (old vs new) and, if they were old, whether their reappearance was in the same typography as on the first occurrence or a different one. Of the two typographies, one was familiar and the other unfamiliar. Results show that a considerable amount of information regarding surface features is stored for many minutes and that ease of initial encoding is inversely related to likelihood of subsequent recognition: sentences in the unfamiliar typography were remembered better. The results are probably not due to time spent encoding; control tests suggest that time spent encoding a difficult typography does not by itself increase recognition of the semantic content embodied in the typography. Other control tests show that pictorial features or images of the sentences play no significant role in their subsequent recognition. One interpretation of the results is that the analytic activities or cognitive operations that characterize initial acquisition play a significant role in subsequent recognition.     

Don’t Shoot the Messnger: Memory for Misspellings in Context

Misspellings in sentences are usually easy to understand by readers due to top-down influences. Although top-down processing allows for fluent reading of misspelled items, the nature of their representations in memory is not known. If representations of misspellings are distinct from representations of correctly spelled words, their influence should be seen in later recognition decisions. In this set of experiments, participants read words and misspellings embedded in sentences and were later given a recognition test. The sentences contained semantically biased or neutral contexts. In Experiment 1, misspellings were created by removing a single letter (e.g., drveway). In Experiment 2, the recognition items probes were presented in uppercase letters (e.g., DRVEWAY) to reduce the visual similarity between study and test items. In Experiment 3, the misspellings were created by substituting visually similar letters (e.g., driweway). In contrast to the previous experiments, in Experiment 4, participants were explicitly told about the memory test to see how response strategies affect performance. Overall, the results indicate that people retain surface feature information about misspellings which seem to inform their memory judgments, and that the processing of this information cannot be strategically controlled.     

Syntactic complexity and elaborative processing

Memory for sentences as a function of the syntactic complexity of the sentences was examined. Sentence complexity was varied through a manipulation that involved presenting sentences in either self-embedded forms or more standard forms. Subjects performed an incidental semantic orienting task on a set of sentences varying in complexity and were subsequently tested for their recognition memory of the sentences. In Experiment 1, subjects were tested for their memory of both surface characteristics and meaning of the sentences. There were no differences caused by sentence complexity for memory for meaning. Memory for surface structure, however, was a function of sentence complexity such that there was better memory for the more complex sentences. Experiment 2 replicated the finding that the more complex sentences produced better recognition memory for surface structure. The results are interpreted within a framework that suggests that increased syntactic complexity produces more elaboration, which in turn produces better memory.     

Memory for the form and force of declaratives and interrogatives

Memory for the illocutionary force and surface form of direct and indirect speech acts was studied in two recall tasks. Both examined the effects of the context of original presentation on subjects’ ability to recall declarative and interrogative sentences. Subjects more accurately recalled the verbatim form of indirect requests and offers than that of direct assertions and queries. When prompted by contexts that preserved or changed in illocutionary force of a declarative or interrogative, subjects were equally likely to recall sentences originally used as indirect requests and offers. However, they more frequently recalled sentences originally used as direct assertions or queries when prompted by force-preserving contexts than when prompted by force-changing contexts.     

整体语境和局部语境对代词理解的影响

通过眼动实验,考察了语篇理解中整体语境和局部语境对代词理解的影响。实验一是预备实验,发现名词与动词词组之间关系的典型性不同,整合的速度也不一样。实验二发现,代词的理解不是一次完成的,代词理解的初期受整体语境的语义偏向影响,而不受局部语境的影响。在第二阶段主要受到局部语境的影响。代词的理解过程比较符合Cook（2004）所提出的两阶段模型     

Eye movements of highly skilled and average readers: Differential effects of frequency and predictability

This study offers a glimpse of the moment-by-moment processes used by highly skilled and average readers during silent reading. The eye movements of adult readers were monitored while they silently read sentences. Fixation durations and the spatial-temporal patterns of eye movements were examined to see whether the two groups of readers exhibited differential effects of frequency and/or predictability. In Experiment 1, high- and low-frequency target words were embedded in nonconstraining sentence contexts. In Experiment 2, the same participants read high- and low-frequency target words that were either predictable or unpredictable, embedded in highly constraining sentence contexts. Results indicated that when target words appeared in highly constraining sentence contexts, the average readers showed different effects of frequency and predictability from those shown in the highly skilled readers. It appears that reading skill can interact with predictability to affect the word recognition processes used during silent reading.     

Activation and elaboration effects in recognition and word priming

Two experiments investigated the effect of direct and indirect activation on subsequent accessibility to individual items. In the first experiment, words were semantically processed in the context of either phonologically (rhyming) or conceptually (categorical) related words and tested subsequently for recognition and word completion. On the completion test the initial three letters of a word are presented for completion. The previously presented target word is one of several possible completions. The presence of different contexts had no differential effect either on recognition memory—which persisted at high levels for two days—or on completion—which decayed in the course of about 15 min.

In the second experiment, the contexts were presented but the target words were not. Thus the rhyming and categorical contexts were directly activated but not the actual words that were scored on the subsequent tests. Prior activation of phonologically similar items affected both recognition and completion performance on immediate testing, but not after 10 min. Conceptual activation affected only recognition—an effect that lasted for a period of days. Completion performance demonstrates access to the integration component of recognition. The results were compared with attempts to demonstrate independence of recognition and completion.