Citation

Fletcher CR, Hummel JE, Marsolek CJ. J. Exp. Psychol. Learn. Mem. Cogn. 1990; 16(2): 233-240.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis 55455.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1990, American Psychological Association)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

2137862

Abstract

Recent research has suggested that each statement in a narrative text is understood by relating it to its causal antecedents and consequences and that the text as a whole is understood by finding a causal path linking its opening to its final outcome. Fletcher and Bloom (1988) have proposed that in order to accomplish this goal, while minimizing the number of times long-term memory has to be searched, readers focus their attention on the last clause of a narrative that has causal antecedents but no consequences in the preceding text. As a result, a statement that is followed by a causal antecedent should remain the focus of attention, while the same statement followed by a consequence should not. This prediction was tested and confirmed in three experiments which show that when a target statement is followed by a sentence that includes only causal antecedents, (a) continuation sentences related to it are read more quickly, (b) target words drawn from it are easier to recognize, and (c) subject-generated continuations are more likely to be causally related to it.

Language: en