Message Intensity and Cognitive Representations of Discourse Effects on Inferential Processing

Two experiments were conducted to examine the influence of intensity on inferential processing. It was predicted that the likelihood and speed of inferential processing for high-intensity texts should be greater than for texts low in intensity. On a recognition task, both adults and children falsely recognized implicit text information after processing high-intensity texts. Further, high-intensity passages triggered inference making during recall more readily than did the texts low in intensity. In general, speed of inferential processing did not differ as a function of the intensity manipulation. Although there was some evidence indicating that fourth grade children were more sensitive to the manipulations than were kindergartners, there were no clear age-related differences in children's ability to make inferences. The results are interpreted from a general associative memory model.