ABSTRACT

The coherence threshold marks the point at which a reader has gained a sufficient comprehension level to move on in a text. Previous research has demonstrated that the readers’ coherence threshold can be manipulated by increasing or decreasing task demands. The present experiments examined a manipulation of the coherence threshold within the text itself. Experiment 1 demonstrated that the participants’ coherence threshold was raised following an in-text disruption, evidenced by slowed reading times on the semantic anomaly target sentence that followed. Experiment 2 demonstrated that this effect was not limited to contextually related information. In Experiment 3, the effect occurred even when the inconsistency and anomaly were separated further by filler text. In Experiments 4 and 5 the threshold was not reset following a pause in reading but was reset following a full passage break with a comprehension question. Results are discussed within the context of the RI-Val model of reading comprehension.

摘要

连贯阈值标志着读者获得足够的理解水平以继续阅读文本。先前的研究表明，读者的连贯阈值可以通过增加或减少任务需求来操纵。本实验检查了对文本本身内连贯阈值的操纵。实验 1 表明，参与者的连贯性阈值在文本中断后提高，随后的语义异常目标句子的阅读时间变慢就证明了这一点。实验 2 表明这种影响不仅限于上下文相关的信息。在实验 3 中，即使不一致和异常被填充文本进一步分离，这种影响也会发生。在实验 4 和 5 中，阈值不是在阅读暂停后重置，而是在完整的段落休息和理解问题后重置。结果在阅读理解的 RI-Val 模型的背景下进行讨论。