Ackerman, B. P. (1986). Referential and causal coherence in the story comprehension of children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 41(2), 336-366.

Ackerman, B.

1986

Ackerman, B. P. (1986). Referential and causal coherence in the story comprehension of children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 41(2), 336-366.

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Investigated the relation between referential and causal coherence in discourse comprehension and some of the factors that affect children's ability to establish both. In 5 experiments, the ability of 36 1st graders, 36 4th graders, and 36 college adults to make causal inferences that explain how an unexpected and inconsistent outcome follows from an initial premise event in a story was examined. Textual factors that help establish referential continuity and link the inconsistent premise and outcome sentences were distinguished from propositional factors that help invite a particular causal inference that resolves the inconsistency. Results suggest that referential and causal coherence represent different and empirically dissociable aspects of comprehension; establishing referential coherence may be necessary to establish the need for a causal inference, but otherwise contributes minimally to that inference. In addition, the results show that children are less likely than adults to establish both kinds of coherence, depending on the difficulty of the process. Developmental investigators should distinguish between referential and causal coherence to locate the precise source of inference deficits.

The results report four conclusions. First, both the explicitness of coreference cues and the amount of clue support affect the ability to establish story coherence. Second, young children are less likely than adults to establish referential coherence for nonexplicit coreference cues, and to establish causal coherence when the inference invitation is weak. Third, establishing referential coherence and causal coherence represent different comprehension processes. Fourth, the evidence supports the idea that establishing referential coherence is necessary but insufficient for establishing causal coherence.

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