Superficial processing of explicit inferences in text∗

Abstract

The hypothesis that pragmatic inferences presented in text are taken for granted, superficially processed, and not stably or enduringly represented in memory was investigated. Stories were read which in some conditions contained information vitiating the implicational force of explicit inferences. The vitiating information was presented either before or after the inferences. In Experiment I, errors in memory for the inferences were prevalent in the “after” but not the “before” condition. Two kinds of errors were made: saying the inference had not been presented in the story; or, if it was remembered as having been presented, altering the specific content of the inference to produce the opposite of what was actually presented. The latter errors produced coherence with the vitiating information, and subjects were not able to differentiate these errors from correct responses. In Experiment II, the results of Experiment I were replicated, and a “spontaneous correction” interpretation was rejected. The results of both experiments combine to support the hypothesis of superficial processing and unstable representation of explicit inferences. The results provide a link between processes occurring at comprehension and recall in the State of Schema model of accommodative reconstruction.