Mechanisms of sentence context effects in reading: Automatic activation and conscious attention

Abstract

In. Experiment 1 subjeets named target words that were preeeded by a eongruous sentenee eontext, an ineongruous sentenee eontext, or no sentenee eontext, under stimulus eonditions that were either normal or degraded by eontrast reduetion. Under normal stimulus eonditions, a eontextual faeilitation effeet, but no eontextual inhibition effeet, was observed.When the target word was degraded, both eontextual facilitation and inhibition were observed. Experiment 2 replieated the inerease in eontextual inhibition under degraded eonditions and also demonstrated that inhibition inereased as the interval between eontextual processing and target-word onset was lengthened. The results were interpreted within the framework of the Posner and Snyder two-proeess theory of expeetaney. Thus, when target-word reeognition is rapid, only the fast-aeting automatie aetivation eomponent of eontext effeets has time to operate. When target-word proeessing is delayed, the eonscious-attention meehanism, whieh is responsible for inhibition effeets, beeomes operative. The relevanee of these results to developmental investigations of the interaction of word recognition and eontextual processing is diseussed.In arecent study, West and Stanovich (1978) had subjects of three ages name a target word that had been preceded by an incomplete sentence that was congruent with the word, by an incomplete sentence that was incongruent with the word, or simply by the word "the" (i.e., a no-context condition). Compared to the reaction times obtained in the no-context condition, naming was faster when the target word was preceded by a congruous context. This contextual facilitation effect did not differ statistically across the three age groups in the study (fourth-graders, sixth-graders, and adults). In fact, correlations involving a standardized reading measure indicated a tendency for poorer readers to show a greater contextual facilitation effect, a result consistent with previous research (Biemiller, 1977(Biemiller, -1978Schvaneveldt, Ackerman, & Semlear, 1977). In addition, a significant contextual inhibition effect (longer naming This research was supported by an Oakland University faculty research grant. The authors would like to thank Mike Seiler, Ann Cunningharn-DiPaolo, and Dale Hansen for assistanoe in data collection. James H. Neely made extensive and insightful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript and the authors are grateful for his contribution. The authors also wish to thank Paula J. Stanovich for providing technical assistance. Requests for reprints should be sent to Keith E. Stanovich, Department of Psychology, Oakland University, Rochester, Michigan 48063. times in the incongruous context condition than in the no-eontext condition) was found for both fourth-grade and sixth-grade subjects, but not for adults. In the latter group, mean naming times were virtually identieal in the no-context and incongruous eonditions.The pattern of results in the West and Stanovich (1978) study fits rather nicely within the framework of the ...

Effects of constraint and validity of sentence contexts on lexical decisions

“…Schuberth and Eimas (1977) found both facilitation for congruous words and inhibition for incongruous words on lexical decision latency. Similar results were obtained by Fischler and Bloom (1979), who also showed that the amount of facilitation was positively related to the predictability of congruous words when predictability varied difficult to recognize in isolation , by making the test word more difficult to see (Stanovich & West, 1979, Experiment 6; but cf. Experiments 7 and 8), and by increasing the delay between the last word of the context to be read and the presentation of the word to be named (Stanovich & West, 1981, Experiment 2).…”

Effects of stimulus and contextual information on the lexical decision process

“…Mitchell & Green, 1978) in which the visual quality of the test phrase and its semantic congruity with prior context were varied. Stanovich and West (1979) reported both the presence (Experiment 1 and Experiment 2, short response-stimulus interval) and the absence (Experiment 2, long response-stimulus interval) of a significant Stimulus Quality by Semantic Congruity interaction effect when subjects pronounced words that followed the presentation of sentence contexts. These authors discussed a number of differences in the nature of stimulus conditions in the two experiments that may have led to the discrepancy in results.…”

Multiple effects of sentential constraint on word processing

“…Congruent context information has been found to speed word naming and lexical decision (word/nonword) judgment times (Fischler and Bloom, 1979;Kleiman, 1980;Schuberth et al, 1981;Stanovich and West, 1979) and to enhance word perception in the Reicher-Wheeler task (Jordan and Thomas, 2002). During natural reading, contextually constrained words are more likely to be skipped and less likely to be regressed to, and, when fixated, are viewed for less time than less constrained words (Ehrlich and Rayner, 1981).…”