Müsseler, J., Rickheit, G., & Strohner, H. (1985). Influences of modality, text difficulty, and processing control on inferences in text processing. Advances in Psychology, 29, 247-271.

Musseler, J.; Rickheit, G.; Strohner, H.

1985

Müsseler, J., Rickheit, G., & Strohner, H. (1985). Influences of modality, text difficulty, and processing control on inferences in text processing. Advances in Psychology, 29, 247-271.

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The general aim of the present study was to investigate the influence of oral and written discourse media on various types of inferences in text processing. The special aim of this experiment was to investigate the contribution of the processing control factor to the repeatedly observed modality effect in text processing. In order to reduce processing control in reading we included a reading condition with word-for-word presentation on the screen of a microcomputer. In the first experiment an expository text was presented orally, typewritten on two pages and word-for-word on a display screen. There were no similarities in the recall patterns for word-for-word reading and listening, but the two reading conditions resulted in almost identical scores for most dependent variables. We conclude from these results that the higher processing control in reading than in listening does not essentially contribute to the modality effect. Another result of the first experiment was the significant effect for elaborative inferences, but not for inferences which combine two different parts of the text. On recalling the easy text subjects made more elaborative inferences after listening than after reading. On recalling the dificult text subjects made more elaborative inferences after reading than after listening. In a second experiment we examined the hypothesis that readers make a greater effort to overcome problems of coherence than listeners. Subjects read of listened to pairs of sentences which differed in the ease of establishing coherence. There was no different modality effect on comprehension times in reading and listening, although comprehension times differed considerably in accordance with the experimental hypothesis.

The results show that the subjects need a longer time to understand the sentence pair in the difficult condition than in the easy condition. This confirms the results of Haviland and Clark (1974) and Tanenhaus and Seidenberg (1981) with similar materials. Establishing coherence takes additional time on reading as well as on listening.

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