The comprehension processes and memory structures involved in anaphoric reference

Abstract

The inference processes involved in anaphoric reference were examined in three experiments. The first two experiments used an activation procedure in which the subject read a paragraph sentence by sentence and was then presented with a single test word from the first sentence of the paragraph for recognition. Response time to the test word was speeded both when the test word was a referent of an anaphor mentioned in the last sentence of the paragraph and when the test word was in the same proposition as the referent of the anaphor in the last sentence. This shows that an anaphor activates both its referent and concepts in the same proposition as its referent. The third experiment used a priming technique to show that the referent and a concept in the same proposition as the anaphor are connected in the long-term memory representation of a text. These results are discussed in terms of a simple three-process model of anaphoric inference. Other methodologies used to study inference processing are evaluated and it is concluded that these methods involve considerable problems in experimental design and theoretical interpretation and are also limited in the kinds of information they can provide about inference processing. © 1980 Academic Press, Inc.