This research extends previous attempts to determine whether subjects make predictive inferences during comprehension. For example, when subjects read a passage about someone falling out of a 14th-story window, do they infer that the person is dead? Previous research in which lexical decision, word naming, and recognition tasks have been used for detecting predictive inferences has had mixed results. In experiment 1, a word-stem completion task was used to test for predictive inferences. The word stems were formed from target inferences that followed either priming or control passages. The data revealed that predictive inferences are generated only about concepts that are foregrounded in the passages. In Experiments 2 and 3, lexical decision and naming were used to test for predictive inferences. The lexical decision data replicated the word-stem completion data. A control experiment ruled out a simple context-checking explanation for the lexical decision results. The naming data indicated that this tasks was not sensitive to elaborative inference generation. The results show that readers make predictive inferences, but do so selectively.In the early 1970s, research on how people read began to focus on the nature of the mental representation formed during comprehension. One idea that came from this research was that a passage is encoded as a mental representation that has been constructed from preexisting and text-based information (see, e.g., Bransford & Johnson, 1973;Johnson-Laird, 1983).A key assumption of this constructive view is that information not explicitly stated is inferred during comprehension and becomes part of the text representation. However, the evidence is mixed with respect to whether such elaborative inferences are made on-line, and theoretical positions on the extensiveness of elaboration have become quite polarized (Whitney, 1987). For example, Schank (1978) argued strongly for the view that extensive elaboration is a normal part of comprehension: "Understanding is expectation based. It is only when the expectations are useless or wrong that bottom-up processing begins" (p.94).In support of this view, a number of early studies yielded evidence for extensive elaboration in reading (e.g., Anderson et al., 1976;Paris & Lindauer, 1976). In these studies, however, researchers relied on cued recall to test for use of elaborative inferences. It has become clear that This research was supported by Air Force Office of Scientific Research Grant 9 t-(l068 to the first author. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing the official policies or endorsements, either expressed or implied, or the AFOSR or the U.S. government. Experiment I formed the basis of a thesis submitted by the second author in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the MS degree. The authors thank Donna Lomen for her help with data collection. Address correspondence to Paul Whitney, Department of Psychology. Washington State University, Pullman, cue effectiven...
The exploratory or feeding activities of others might influence the timing, the place, or both, of exploratory activities among young group-living individuals, and this influence might affect the information gained by individuals during exploration. This study examined the temporal and spatial aspects of adults' influence on the exploratory behavior of juvenile capuchins, and on the juveniles' acquisition of a novel behavior. Two experimental apparatus, which were initially novel to the juvenile subjects but familiar to the adults, and which provided food when a tool was used properly, were presented to group-housed capuchin monkeys. The apparatus were presented (a) in a central area, in which all animals could interact with the apparatus and in which several older group members regularly solved the tasks (group site), and (b) in a protected site within the home cage (creche) that only juveniles could enter, but from which the rest of the cage, including the group site, could be viewed. Juveniles contacted the apparatus at the creche more often when there was no apparatus at the group site, but only half the individuals made greater use of the apparatus at the group site than at the creche when an apparatus was present at both sites. Seven of nine used an apparatus more often when adults also had an apparatus, than when adults did not have an apparatus. These results indicate that juveniles' exploratory activity is only weakly related to adults' activity. The linkage appears closer for younger juveniles (20 months or less) than for older juveniles. Moreover, as only older juveniles learned to solve the tasks, coordination of exploration with adults was evidently not related to learning a new skill.
Will the practice of collecting wild honey wearing no clothes become a widespread practice in Zimbabwe? Or will beekeeping take over as the main way that people acquire honey? Both practices impact on forest resources; how can the foresters influence the uptake of these ideas? This paper describes an exploratory modelling study investigating how social network patterns affect the way ideas spread around communities. It concludes that increasing the density of social networks increases the spread of successful ideas whilst speeding the loss of ideas with no competitive advantage. Some different kinds of competitive advantage are explored in the context of forest management and rural extension. 1
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