Wolfe, M. B. W., Magliano, J. P., & Larsen, B. (2005). Causal and semantic relatedness in discourse understanding and representation. Discourse Processes, 39(2-3), 165-187.

Wolfe, M.; Magliano, J.; Larsen, B.

2005

Wolfe, M. B. W., Magliano, J. P., & Larsen, B. (2005). Causal and semantic relatedness in discourse understanding and representation. Discourse Processes, 39(2-3), 165-187.

2a-2b

Processing time and memory for sentences were examined as a function of the degree of semantic and causal relatedness between sentences in short narratives. In Experiments 1-2B, semantic and causal relatedness between sentence pairs was independently manipulated. Causal relatedness was assessed through pretesting and semantic relatedness was assessed with Latent Semantic Analysis. Causal relatedness influenced processing time and memory. Semantic relatedness influenced memory, and influenced processing time when causality was not manipulated within an experiment and the situation described by the sentence pairs was somewhat difficult to construct. Experiment 3 utilized naturalistic texts. Semantic and causal relatedness between sentences influenced online judgments of fit and free recall. Results are discussed in terms of bottom-up and top-down theories of text processing.

The results of these experiments are consistent with the reading time data from experiment 1 and suggest that situational relatedness between sentence pairs has a greater impact on online processing than semantic relatedness. Semantic relatedness can influence reading times, however this occurred only when causal relatedness was low, and not manipulated within subjects. When there was a strong causal relation between the two sentences, semantic relatedness did not have an impact on reading times.

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