Zabrucky, K. (1986). The role of factual coherence in discourse comprehension. Discourse Processes, 9(2), 197-220.

Zabrucky, K.

1986

Zabrucky, K. (1986). The role of factual coherence in discourse comprehension. Discourse Processes, 9(2), 197-220.

3

Investigated the effects of breakdowns in referential (R) and factual coherence (FC) on text comprehension, using 56 university students. Breakdowns in RC produced by distant antecedent information hindered reading times of texts but not text memory; those produced by absent antecedent information hindered both. Breakdowns in FC hindered reading times of texts and hindered text memory when the comprehension goal of readers was an integrative one, requiring readers to update old knowledge with new information, but not when the comprehension goal was to accurately recall the texts. Recall results for the more integrative task suggested that new factually inconsistent information is particularly salient and memorable to Ss, whereas memory for "old" factually inconsistent knowledge is hindered. Results are discussed in terms of possible constructive and reconstructive processes contributing to hindered memory for factually inconsistent information.

In contrast to the first two experiments, in which factual coherence failed to have an effect on memory under standard laboratory conditions, coherence had a striking effect on memory in the present study. The data from experiment 3 suggest that memory for factually incoherent information is hindered when the comprehension goal of readers is to update their knowledge from a text with new text information that might have some importance or usefulness to them.

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