Failures to Detect Contradictions in a Text: What Readers Believe Versus What They Read

Abstract

Subjects read brief paragraphs containing contradictory statements. Many of the subjects failed to notice the contradiction. On a subsequent recall test, nondetectors frequently either recalled only one or neither of the contradictory statements or explained the contradiction away. The construction-integration model of discourse comprehension is used to simulate these results. Failures to detect contradictions are accounted for by assuming that nondetectors believe too strongly in the global text interpretations they create or in their prior beliefs. In the model, this means that their comprehension processes are normal, except that one normal component of comprehension differential weighting of important statements is exaggerated. © 1992, Association for Psychological Science. All rights reserved.