Inference During Reading

Most current theories of text processing assume a constructionist view of inference processing. In this article, an alternative view is proposed, labeled the minimalist hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the only inferences that are encoded automatically during reading are those that are base...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological review 1992-07, Vol.99 (3), p.440-466
Main Authors: McKoon, Gail, Ratcliff, Roger
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognitive Processes
College Students
Comprehension
Concept Formation
Constructivism
Encoding (Psychology)
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Goal Orientation
Higher Education
Human
Humans
Hypothesis Testing
Inference
Inferences
Language
Mental Processes
Mental Recall
Minimalist Hypothesis
Perceptions
Production and perception of written language
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Reaction Time
Reading
Semantics
Social research
Text Processing (Reading)
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Summary:Most current theories of text processing assume a constructionist view of inference processing. In this article, an alternative view is proposed, labeled the minimalist hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the only inferences that are encoded automatically during reading are those that are based on easily available information, either from explicit statements in the text or from general knowledge, and those that are required to make statements in the text locally coherent. The minimalist hypothesis is shown to be supported by previous research and by the results of several new experiments. It is also argued that automatically encoded minimalist inferences provide the basic representation of textual information from which more goal-directed, purposeful inferences are constructed.
ISSN:0033-295X
1939-1471
DOI:10.1037/0033-295X.99.3.440