South China Normal University, Guangzhou.
Int J Psychol. 2010 Aug 1;45(4):241-9. doi: 10.1080/00207590903085521.
The present experiments explored the resolution of activated background information in text comprehension. In Experiment 1, participants read passages that contained an elaboration section that was either consistent or qualified (inconsistent but then corrected to be consistent) with respect to the subsequently presented target sentence (see O'Brien et al., 1998). However, the experiment used two target sentences, and several filler sentences were inserted between the first and second target sentence. The results showed that the reading times for the first target sentence in the qualified elaboration version were significantly longer than those in the consistent elaboration version. These were consistent with O'Brien's study, and further indicated that the basic process captured by the memory-based view appears to generalize to the Chinese reader better than does the here-and-now view. More importantly, the results showed that the reading times for the second target sentence in the qualified elaboration version were as long as those in the consistent elaboration version. These further indicated that the activation of background information not only maintained the coherence of the text, but also allowed for the relevant information to be updated, resulting in a unified information set. When the information was reactivated during ongoing reading, it would be in the form of unified information. In Experiment 2, the first target sentence in each passage from Experiment 1 was converted to a filler sentence, and the second target sentence became the target sentence. The results of Experiment 2 showed that the reading times for the target sentence in the qualified elaboration version were significantly longer than those for the consistent elaboration version. These indicated that the delay between the target sentences and the elaboration section was not responsible for the lack of differences in Experiment 1, and confirmed the conclusion of Experiment 1.
本实验探究了在文本理解中激活背景信息的消解。在实验 1 中，参与者阅读了包含阐述部分的文章，该阐述部分与随后呈现的目标句（见 O'Brien 等人，1998）一致或不一致（不一致，但随后修正为一致）。然而，该实验使用了两个目标句，并且在第一个和第二个目标句之间插入了几个填充句。结果表明，在一致阐述版本中，第一个目标句的阅读时间明显长于在不一致阐述版本中的阅读时间。这与 O'Brien 的研究一致，进一步表明，基于记忆的观点所捕捉到的基本过程似乎比此时此地的观点更能普遍适用于中国读者。更重要的是，结果表明，在不一致阐述版本中，第二个目标句的阅读时间与在一致阐述版本中的阅读时间一样长。这进一步表明，背景信息的激活不仅保持了文本的连贯性，而且允许更新相关信息，从而形成一个统一的信息集。当信息在持续阅读中被重新激活时，它将以统一的信息形式呈现。在实验 2 中，实验 1 中每个段落的第一个目标句都被转换为填充句，第二个目标句成为目标句。实验 2 的结果表明，在不一致阐述版本中，目标句的阅读时间明显长于在一致阐述版本中的阅读时间。这表明，目标句和阐述部分之间的延迟并不是导致实验 1 中差异不明显的原因，并证实了实验 1 的结论。
