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College students with either high or low prior domain knowledge (PK) read a text chapter presented in short pages on a computer monitor. Half of the participants read with headings present and half with headings absent. The computer recorded time spent reading and rereading each short page. Learning was assessed through a structured recall task. In general, headings seem to improve recall of high importance information, and headings were more effective for high PK learners. Analysis of time data showed that participants with headings spent more time per word reading the pages with headings than participants that did not have ...

Is de zin "Hij verklaarde zich bereid tot het onmiddelijk neerleggen van al zijn politieke functies" moeilijker te verwerken dan "Hij verklaarde zich bereid om onmiddelijk al zijn politieke functies neer te leggen"? De data van ons leesexperiment bevestigen de hypothese dat naamwoordconstructies zoals de eerste, gesubstantieerde infinitieven, moeilijker verwerkt worden dan hun werkwoordelijke equivalenten. De veronderstelling dat ze tot een verminderd tekstbegrip leiden, werd niet bevestigd. ...

In 2 experiments with 32 undergraduates, Ss were interrupted while listening to a 2-clause sentence just before the last word of either the initial or final clause. In Exp I Ss were timed on their decision about whether a verb-object phrase was consistent in meaning with the sentence fragment they had just heard. Overall these decisions were made more quickly when a main clause was interrupted than when a subordinate clause was interrupted, but the size and direction of main-subordinate differences varied with the causal-temporal properties of subordinate clauses. In Exp II, Ss were timed on their decisions about whether ...

In 2 experiments with 32 undergraduates, Ss were interrupted while listening to a 2-clause sentence just before the last word of either the initial or final clause. In Exp I Ss were timed on their decision about whether a verb-object phrase was consistent in meaning with the sentence fragment they had just heard. Overall these decisions were made more quickly when a main clause was interrupted than when a subordinate clause was interrupted, but the size and direction of main-subordinate differences varied with the causal-temporal properties of subordinate clauses. In Exp II, Ss were timed on their decisions about whether ...

This study investigated the processing of causal and diagnostic sentences containing the connective because to determine whether incremental interpretation applies to interclausal relationships. The eye movements of 32 college students were monitored as they read 24 causal and diagnostic sentences. In the causal sentences the 2nd clause contained a plausible explanation for the events described in the 1st clause, while in the diagnostic sentences, the 2nd clause contained evidence that the 1st clause was a true statement. Results indicated that difficulty processing diagnostic sentences occurred well before the end of the second clause. Readers incrementally constructed a semantic interpretation of ...

Recent evidence suggests that phrase length plays a crucial role in modification ambiguities. Using a self-paced reading task, we extended these results by examining the additional pragmatic effects that length manipulations may exert. The results demonstrate that length not only modulates modification preferences directly, but that it also necessarily changes the informational content of a sentence, which itself affects modification preferences. Our findings suggest that the same length manipulation affects multiple sources of constraints, both structural and pragmatic, which can each exert differing effects on processing. ...

College students with either high or low prior domain knowledge (PK) read a text chapter presented in short pages on a computer monitor. Half of the participants read with headings present and half with headings absent. The computer recorded time spent reading and rereading each short page. Learning was assessed through a structured recall task. In general, headings seem to improve recall of high importance information, and headings were more effective for high PK learners. Analysis of time data showed that participants with headings spent more time per word reading the pages with headings than participants that did not have ...

This study examined the effects of line length on reading speed, comprehension, and user satisfaction of online news articles. Twenty college-age students read news articles displayed in 35, 55, 75, or 95 characters per line (cpl) from a computer monitor. Results showed that passages formatted with 95 cpl resulted in faster reading speed. No effects of line length were found for comprehension or satisfaction, however, users indicated a strong preference for either the short or long line lengths. ...

Older adults may be disadvantaged in the performance of procedural assembly tasks because of age-related declines in working memory operations. It was hypothesized that adding illustrations to instructional text may lessen age-related performance differences by minimizing processing demands on working memory in the elderly. In the present study, younger and older adults constructed a series of 3-dimensional objects from 3 types of instructions (text only, illustration only, or text and illustrations). Results indicated that instructions consisting of text and illustrations reduced errors in construction for both age groups compared with the other formats. Younger adults, however, outperformed older adults under ...

Three experiments investigated how quickly and accurately students could locate information contained in different types of displays. Undergraduates read multiplechoice questions and then searched either texts, outlines, or graphic organizers to find information needed to answer the questions. In Experiments 1 and 2, students who searched either graphic organizers or outlines found answers to fact questions more quickly than those who searched text, and students who searched graphic organizers found answers to comparison questions more quickly than those who searched either outlines or text. In Experiment 3, all three displays contained the same number of words to remove a potential confound ...