Publication Date

1987

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Schwantes, Frederick M.

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Reading; Psychology of; Word recognition; Memory

Abstract

One major purpose of the present study was to examine contextual factors that affect speed of recognizing words encountered following reading of a complete sentence. A second major purpose of the present study was to investigate the notion of developmental differences in using inferences derived from contextual information to aid word recognition speed and sentence recall. Third-grade, sixth-grade, and col lege-level students participated in an on-line reading task that incorporated both a naming latency and cued-recall task carried out under four sentence-target pairing conditions (repeated, inferred, associated, unrelated). The major findings indicated developmental differences in the degree to which reading of a complete sentence facilitated subsequent target word recognition. Specifically, repeated targets (repetitions of the last word in the previously read sentence) were read significantly faster than associated targets (associates of the last word in the previously read sentence) and inferred targets (words whose meanings were inferable from the meaning of the previously read sentence) by third graders but not by adults. Furthermore, associated and inferred targets were read significantly faster than unrelated targets (words that were unrelated to the previously read sentence) and this difference was greater for third graders than adults. These results were interpreted in terms of developmental differences in automatic context effects and semantic integration effects. No developmental differences between conditions were obtained for the memory portion of the study. The percentage of correctly recalled sentences in the repeated and inferred conditions was greater than the percentage of sentences correctly recalled in the associated and unrelated conditions across grades.

Comments

Includes bibliographies.

Extent

115 pages

Language

eng

Publisher

Northern Illinois University

Rights Statement

In Copyright

Rights Statement 2

NIU theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from Huskie Commons for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without the written permission of the authors.

Media Type

Text

Download

Share

COinS