Brian Erdman

Publication Date

1993

Document Type

Dissertation/Thesis

First Advisor

Simon, Seymore

Degree Name

M.A. (Master of Arts)

Legacy Department

Department of Psychology

LCSH

Learning; Psychology of; Comprehension (Theory of knowledge)

Abstract

The present study examined the effects of test expectancy (verbatim or inference) and instructions concerning the reality of story information on knowledge representation. College-level students read a story and then participated in a sentence verification task which included either verbatim or inference statements from the story. A context effect was found for the inference, but not for the verbatim statements. That is, subjects who received verbatim statements tended to incorporate the story information, udiile subjects who were presented with inference statements were more likely to compartmentalize the story information. Furthermore, subjects responded faster to the inference statements than to the verbatim statements. It was expected that subjects would display a context effect uhen given fictional story instructions and no context effect when presented with real story instructions. This result was not obtained, however. A structural model does not accurately predict the outcome of the present study as to the effects of statement type. Such a model would predict compartmentalization in subjects presented with verbatim statements and incorporation in subjects presented with inference statements.

Comments

Includes bibliographical references (pages [53]-54)

Extent

v, 91 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

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