Resolving Interpretive Ambiguity in Text: Children's Generation of Multiple Interpretations

JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL CHILD PSYCHOLOGY ARTICLE NO.

64, 396–424 (1997)

CH962354

Resolving Interpretive Ambiguity in Text: Children’s Generation of Multiple Interpretations MARK A. CASTEEL Penn State York Do young children realize that an outcome in a story that has ambiguous causes (due to the presence of multiple clues) may have more than one interpretation? If so, what factors influence which interpretation is chosen first? These questions were addressed in four experiments using second- and fourth-grade children, and a number of story variables were manipulated. The results showed that both groups of children were skilled at providing two interpretations, although the second graders were more likely to go beyond the story and utilize extrastory information in their second interpretations. Additionally, the first interpretations were heavily influenced by factors that promoted concept accessibility, such as clue recency, the presence of titles, and the influence of final biasing sentences. q 1997 Academic Press

Imagine the following scenario: A young child reads a story that ends with an ambiguous outcome. Embedded within the story are two clues that provide alternative and competing interpretations of the outcome. One of the clues is consistent with previous contextual information that biases one of the interpretations while the other clue presents a potential interpretation not supported elsewhere in the text. Successful comprehension of the story therefore requires the young reader to draw an inference (or inferences) about the cause of the ambiguous outcome. As is implied in the above scenario, inference generation lies at the core of much successful story comprehension (e.g., Dopkins, Klin, & Myers, 1993; Graesser, Bertus, & Magliano, 1995; van den Broek, 1994). In the above scenario, however, the situation is not as simple as whether or not an approI thank the reviewers for their many helpful suggestions and comments on the manuscript. I also thank the principals and teachers at North Hills and Stony Brook elementary schools in York, Pennsylvania, as well as those at Pleasant View elementary in Red Lion, Pennsylvania, for allowing me to conduct this research. Finally, I thank my three student research assistants, Kelley Hartman, Mick Owens, and Shayne Bushong, for helping to collect the data. This project would not have been possible without the help of the above-mentioned individuals. Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Mark A. Casteel, Department of Psychology, Penn State York, 1031 Edgecomb Avenue, York, PA 19403. E-mail: via Internet to [email protected]. 396 0022-0965/97 $25.00 Copyright q 1997 by Academic Press All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.

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priate inference is drawn. Successful comprehension here requires the reader to pick between two competing and alternative interpretations. A number of compelling questions therefore necessarily flow from this line of thought: When faced with such a situation, what will the young reader do? Will a single interpretation be fastened upon to the exclusion of all others? If so, upon what will it be based? Or perhaps multiple possibilities will be entertained because the young reader realizes that multiple clues are present. But if this is the case, are each of the multiple interpretations judged equally probable? The central question, then, involves not just examining how young children deal with ambiguity in text, but also includes whether or not they are sensitive to the ambiguity, are willing to adjust interpretations in the presence of new information, or even are willing to entertain multiple interpretations. In this regard, the work of Ackerman and his colleagues has been very informative (Ackerman, 1986, 1988; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991; Ackerman, Paine, & Silver, 1991; Ackerman, Silver, & Glickman, 1990). Their general approach has been to present both children and adults with stories in which a goal is stated, followed by an outcome that is inconsistent with the stated goal. In general, they have found that one of the most important variables influencing inconsistency resolution is concept accessibility. For instance, young children (generally second graders) benefit more from the presence of appropriate clues or context sentences than do older children (fourth graders) or adults (Ackerman 1986, 1988). These benefits occur because the clues help to keep the relevant concepts active over intervals of unrelated filler information (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991). Appropriate titles also have a facilitative thematic effect, again presumably by keeping relevant concepts active over a number of filler sentences (Ackerman et al., 1990, 1991). Retrieval support, defined as the number or ordering of questions probing an inference, or the overlap between probe and clue information, also appears important, because developmental differences are smallest when retrieval support is highest (Ackerman & McGraw, 1991). Notwithstanding the developmental differences, however, Ackerman and his colleagues have shown that second graders are actually quite good at resolving the inconsistencies, often averaging between 79% to 96% correct performance in the most favorable concept support conditions (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991). What this suggests is that rather than becoming locked into an initial interpretation, even very young readers are capable of detecting inconsistencies given enough textual support. Research by other authors also supports this contention (Baker, 1984; Zabrucky & Ratner, 1986). Ackerman and his colleagues’ work is important because they have shown that concept accessibility and retrieval support play an important role in determining inference resolution. What their research has generally not ad-

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dressed, however, is how these same factors influence the resolution of outcomes that have multiple interpretations. The idea is simple: If a text has multiple clues to an ambiguous outcome, will young children realize that both clues are viable as sources of interpretation? Additionally, what sorts of factors will influence their first versus second choice? This emphasis is quite different from Ackerman’s emphasis on the resolution of causal inconsistencies. The notion that a text may have competing interpretations has been termed by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) as ‘‘interpretive ambiguity.’’ In their exploratory investigation, they presented children with stories in which an outcome had two equally plausible interpretations. For instance, second and fourth graders heard stories in which an ambiguous event occurred (Cindy’s sand castle got smashed). This outcome was immediately preceded by either two clues (The waves were high that day and Cindy’s brother played volleyball nearby) or neutral filler sentences. Finally, some stories concluded with a biasing sentence that biased one of the two clues (The sand on the beach was all wet or There were footprints on the sand). After hearing the stories, the children were asked what caused the outcome and whether or not anything else could have caused it. Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) found that while all of the children were equally good at making an initial interpretation, the second graders were less likely to realize that alternative interpretations were possible. They also found a recency effect, where first interpretations were more often based on the second clue. This recency effect, however, only occurred for stories whose final sentence either biased the second clue, or for stories without any final biasing sentence. Interestingly, there were no other effects of the final biasing sentences. Bonitatibus and Beal’s (1996) study clearly illustrates that second graders are not as proficient as fourth graders at detecting interpretive ambiguity, although they do perform above chance. Some provocative questions remain, however, which are not addressed by their study. First, the relatively weak effect of the final biasing sentences on outcome resolution was somewhat surprising. Previous research has found rather strong text effects (e.g., Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991; Schmidt, Schmidt, & Tomalis, 1984), so the weak effect in this case is certainly curious. According to Ackerman’s concept accessibility framework (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991), any manipulation that increases the accessibility of a concept should benefit outcome resolution. Second, interesting questions remain concerning the parameters surrounding the recency effect. Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) found that interpretations were most often based on the second clue in the unbiased stories, and in the stories where the final sentence also biased that clue. What remains to be seen, however, is how robust this effect is. Granted, a considerable body of classic research exists illustrating recency effects (Chang, 1980; Jarvella, 1971; 1973; Marslen-Wilson, Tyler, & Seidenberg, 1978). Nonetheless, recent

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work by Gernsbacher and her colleagues (Gernsbacher & Hargreaves, 1988; Gernsbacher, Hargreaves, & Beeman, 1989) suggests that recency effects are short-lived, and that primacy effects are generally more frequent and longerlasting. This raises the possibility that some of the factors that affect concept accessibility, such as titles or biasing context, can either enhance or detract from the recency effect. Third, there is some question concerning the source of the children’s second interpretations in the Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) study. With the exception of the neutral stories (which had no clues), Bonitatibus and Beal only counted second interpretations as correct if they were based on one of the two clues. This raises the interesting question of why the second graders were less likely to offer second interpretations. Is it because younger children tend to freeze on a single correct interpretation and not realize that multiple solutions are possible (cf. Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Acredolo & Horobin, 1987) or because younger children are more inclined to use extrastory information? If younger readers are more inclined to use extrastory information, it may suggest that they are sensitive to interpretive ambiguity but are simply not as likely to base their second interpretations on information within the story. The distinction here is important, because it may be that any developmental improvements in this area are due solely to sensitivity to text-based factors rather than sensitivity to ambiguity per se. The present series of experiments were therefore designed in an attempt to address these issues. Essentially, they represent a marriage of the two approaches adopted by Ackerman and his colleagues and by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996). Four main goals form the rationale behind this study. First, the role that concept accessibility plays in the resolution of interpretive ambiguity will be examined. Concept accessibility was defined using criteria similar to Ackerman’s (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991). Previous research has shown that the prior mention of a concept increases the likelihood that it will be used in an inference designed to repair a cohesion break (Gernsbacher, 1989, 1991; Gernsbacher & Hargreaves, 1988; McKoon & Ratcliff, 1989a, 1989b). Both local effects, such as final biasing sentences or recently mentioned clues (cf. Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991) and more distal effects, such as story prominence in long-term memory, often manipulated by concept-appropriate titles (cf. Morrow, Bower, & Greenspan, 1987; Ackerman et al., 1991), have been found to beneficially influence inference resolution. Therefore, any local or distal text manipulation that increases the accessibility of concepts at encoding should exhibit a beneficial effect on outcome resolution. Second, the variables that influence young readers’ first interpretations will be examined in order to build upon previous research. More specifically, the parameters surrounding the recency effect found by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) will be examined. It may well be that recency effects will be related to the concept accessibility manipulations. Third, the source of young readers’

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second interpretations will be inspected to see whether or not they exhibit a bias to go beyond the story and include extrastory information in their resolution of ambiguity. The final goal subsumes the first three and involves the delineation of any developmental improvements seen with regard to the first three goals. Four experiments were therefore conducted to examine these issues. In all of the experiments, second- and fourth-grade children were read 13 sentence narratives that ended with an ambiguous physical outcome. Two clues immediately preceded the outcome that suggested alternative interpretations of it. Successful resolution of the outcome therefore required the child to generate an inference. As with previous research, this study utilized inferences about physical causes, because these types of inferences appear to be equally easy for young children (Beal, 1990b; Goldman & Varnhagen, 1986; Thompson & Myers, 1985). After hearing each story, the children were asked what caused the outcome and if something else could have caused it. The children also provided confidence ratings on the likelihood of each cause they mentioned. Experiment 1 examined how the presence or lack of a biasing context would influence the resolution of interpretive ambiguity. In addition, the distance between the biasing context and the appropriate clues was also varied. Due to the lack of a biasing context effect in Experiment 1, Experiment 2 used a more explicit biasing context. Experiment 3 examined the influence of titles, while Experiment 4 examined the use of final biasing sentences. EXPERIMENT 1

In the first experiment, the influence of concept accessibility was explored through the use of two manipulations. First, the effects of a biasing context were examined by comparing stories that biased one of two alternative clues against stories that had no biasing context. It was hypothesized that the biasing context would make the concept it introduced highly accessible. Since one of the clues also emphasized this same concept, this clue should play a more central role in resolving the ambiguity. Although the logic of this manipulation is based on the work of Ackerman and his colleagues, the manipulation itself is different. Many of Ackerman’s studies (e.g., Ackerman 1988; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991) contrasted two clues with zero clue stories, where one of the two clue sentences specifically mentioned the concept needed to resolve a causal inconsistency. In the present study, however, concept accessibility was manipulated more subtly. The biasing context did not explicitly mention the concept needed to resolve the ambiguity but, rather, suggested it indirectly through the use of analogy. This more indirect manipulation was chosen in an attempt to extend the concept accessibility work of Ackerman and his colleagues to situations that do not simply involve the explicit mention of a single word. Second, the effects of varying the distance between the biasing context and its convergent clue were explored by comparing stories whose biasing

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RESOLVING INTERPRETIVE AMBIGUITY IN TEXT TABLE 1 Clue Concepts and Ambiguous Outcomes Used in Experiments 1–4 Clue concepts

Ambiguous outcome

Hole in the boat/Too many people in the boat Brother bumped the table/Cat jumped on the table Ate too much food/Caught flu from Grandpa No rain for two weeks/Workers sprayed poison on the flowers Hungry brother/Watchful dog Large waves/Nearby volleyball game Bees near flowers/Thorn on rose Rusty nails in gravel/Tough-looking boys hanging around

Boat sank Milk carton spilled Stomach ache Flowers died Pie disappeared Sand castle got smashed Sharp pain on arm Flat tire

effect occurred within two to three sentences of the convergent clue (nearbias stories) with stories whose biasing effect was five to six sentences removed from the convergent clue (far-bias stories). The logic of this manipulation was taken directly from the work of Ackerman (Ackerman et al., 1990, 1991), who showed that the distance between clues and previous biasing sentences, which should directly impact that accessibility of different concepts, affects the likelihood that a concept will be used to generate an inference. Method Participants. The sample consisted of 24 second- and 24 fourth-grade children drawn from a suburban elementary school in southcentral Pennsylvania. The mean age of the two groups of children were 8–7 and 10–5, respectively. Due to absences on the days the researchers visited the schools, it was impossible to have the same number of boys and girls from both grades participate. Nonetheless, in this and all following experiments, approximately equal numbers of boys and girls participated in each of the various conditions. Additionally, only students rated by their reading teacher as representing average reading ability were included. Materials. Eighteen stories were initially written. Each story presented a biasing context (near, far, or neutral) followed by two clues, which were then followed by a causally ambiguous outcome. Some of the stories were based upon the stories originally used by Bonitatibus & Beal (1996) while others were unique to this research program. A series of norming studies, where both second graders and adults participated, pared the original 18 stories down to 8. Comprehension ratings for each of the final 8 stories showed that both clues equally predicted the outcome. Additionally, neither context distance nor clue order influenced the ratings of story comprehension. Table 1 lists each of the competing clue concepts that were used in the final 8 stories, along with the ambiguous outcomes.

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For all versions of the stories, the first two sentences simply introduced the setting. The next seven sentences differed, depending upon the context version. Context version was defined by the number of sentences separating the biasing context from the two clues. For the neutral stories, Sentences 3– 9 simply presented filler information, which was consistent with the setting introduced in the first two sentences, but was not related to the outcome. For the near-bias versions, Sentences 3–5 presented filler information. Sentences 6 and 7 then introduced the concept that would bias one of the two clues. Sentence 8, which was the biasing sentence, was designed to specifically prime (and therefore, make more accessible) a concept that could be used to resolve the final outcome. This biasing sentence raised the possibility of an outcome that would be mentioned later and suggested a cause for it that would be later suggested by one of the clues, but the threatened outcome never came to pass. For example, the outcome in one of the stories was The rowboat didn’t get far before it sank to the bottom. The two clues that immediately preceded this outcome were There was a hole near the front of the rowboat that nobody saw and The rowboat floated low in the water because there were too many people in it. For this story, the biasing sentence referred to a rubber ducky with a hole the characters in the story had previously found and read The rubber ducky filled up with water and would barely float. Although the relationship between the hole and taking on water was referenced, the rubber ducky did not actually sink, so the bias was never explicit. For the far-bias versions, Sentences 3 to 5 were the same as Sentences 6 to 8 in the near-bias versions. Sentences 3 and 4 introduced the biasing concept, whereas Sentence 5 presented the specific bias. Sentences 6 to 8 were then simply filler. Finally, Sentences 9 to 13 were common to all versions. Sentence 9 presented filler information, followed by the two clue sentences. The support clue biased the interpretation toward the concept suggested by the biasing context while the neutral clue biased a different concept. Clue order was varied systematically within subjects. With this arrangement, the biasing sentence was 2 to 3 sentences away from the support clue (depending upon clue order) in the near-bias stories, while it was 5 to 6 sentences away in the farbias stories. Table 2 shows a sample story. Procedure. Each participant individually heard nine 13-sentence stories. The first story was a practice story that had an outcome whose cause was uncertain but that presented no biasing context or clues. This story allowed each child to become familiar with the testing procedure. Eight children from each grade were read stories in one of the context versions (neutral, nearbias, far-bias). Within each version of a story, there were two lists. The stories in List 1 that had the support clue in the first position had it presented in the second position in List 2, and vice versa. After hearing each story, each child answered a series of four questions.

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RESOLVING INTERPRETIVE AMBIGUITY IN TEXT TABLE 2 A Sample Story Used in Experiment 1 Story version

Sentence type

Neutral context 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

Charlie and his five friends had a picnic beside a lake. They went to the edge of the lake to look at the fish. The water was very clear and they could see all the way to the bottom. The fish were brightly colored and there were many different types. The boys then started to walk along the edge of the lake. Everyone started laughing, and they made a frog jump. Charlie then found a rowboat, and they put it into the water and got in. The boys wanted to row to the other side of the lake. They were all going to take turns so that nobody’s arms got too tired by rowing. There was a hole near the front of the rowboat that nobody saw. The rowboat floated low in the water because there were too many people in it. The rowboat didn’t get far before it sank to the bottom. The boys all had to swim to the shore.

Setting Setting Filler Filler Filler Filler Filler Filler Filler Clue 1 Clue 2 Outcome Filler

Near-bias context 6a. 7a. 8a. 9a.

They found a child’s rubber ducky at the side of the lake. They put the rubber ducky into the water, but it had a leak in the side. The rubber ducky filled up with water and would barely float. Charlie then found a rowboat, and they put it into the water and got in.

Biasing concept Biasing concept Biasing sentence Filler

Far-bias context 3b. 4b. 5b.

They found a child’s rubber ducky at the side of the lake. They put the rubber ducky into the water, but it had a leak in the side. The rubber ducky filled up with water and would barely float.

Biasing concept Biasing concept Biasing sentence

Note. The two clues were systematically manipulated between subjects.

First, they were specifically asked what caused the outcome (e.g., ‘‘Why did the rowboat sink to the bottom?’’). Second, in order to assess multiple interpretations, they were asked if something else could have caused the outcome. Third, as a way of assessing their confidence in their answers, the children provided 5-point confidence ratings. If two interpretations were given, each interpretation was rated. Finally, an explicit memory question was asked to ensure the children were carefully listening to the stories. In

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the two biasing context versions, this question asked a direct ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ question concerning the biasing information, whereas in the neutral versions it addressed filler information from the same sentence position as the biasing versions. Results First interpretations. Initially, the results were analyzed in a manner similar to that of Bonitatibus and Beal (1996). Children were given scores based on the percentage of stories where their first interpretation was based on one of the two clues. These mean scores were analyzed with a grade (2) X context (neutral, near-bias, far-bias) X clue order (support clue first, support clue second) ANOVA, with clue order a within-subjects variable. There were no significant effects. For both groups, over 96% of their answers were based on the two clues. Although the results mirror those found by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996), the analysis obfuscates potential context and/or text-based effects. Since one of the two clues was based on the concept originally introduced in the two biasing versions, it is possible that more first interpretations were based on this support clue than on the alternative neutral clue, and that this would be affected by the nearness of the biasing context as well as clue order. The concept accessibility work of Ackerman and his colleagues discussed previously (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991) would certainly support this notion. The first interpretation data were therefore recalculated, and answers were now scored based on the total percentage of answers that were based on the support clue. In this new analysis, clue order was the only significant effect, F(1,42) Å 6.77, p õ .05, where more answers were based on the support clue if it occurred second (68.8%) rather than first (51.0%). The nearness of the context to the two clues had no effect (see Fig. 1). This pattern of results clearly demonstrates a recency effect. Recency analyses. Although the above recency effect matches that found by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996), it says nothing about whether or not the recency effect is stronger when the support clue comes second, rather than the neutral clue, as would be suggested by Ackerman’s work (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991). Therefore, a new analysis was conducted where children’s first interpretations were scored based on whether they matched the interpretation suggested by Clue 2, and then converted into percentages. In this particular analysis, the clue order variable becomes a ‘‘clue type’’ variable, allowing for a comparison of the strength of the recency effect for support versus neutral clues. These new recency scores were analyzed in a grade (2) X context (3) X clue type (2) ANOVA. A highly significant effect for clue type occurred, F(1,42) Å 14.14, p õ .001, which revealed a stronger recency effect for the support clues

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FIG. 1. Percentage of first interpretations based on the support clue as a function of context bias and clue order.

(68.8%) compared with the neutral clues (47.9%). There were no other significant effects. Second interpretations. The children were also given scores for the percentage of stories where they offered second interpretations, but they were only counted as valid if they were based on one of the two clues. These data were analyzed with a grade (2) X context (3) ANOVA, which showed a distinct grade effect, where the second graders generated fewer second interpretations based on the two clues (53.6%) than did the fourth graders (78.8%), F(1,42) Å 13.79, p õ .001. Although a distinct grade effect was found above, only answers based on one of the two clues were considered valid. Therefore, to see if there were any differences in the tendency to use extrastory information, a new analysis was conducted on all the second interpretations given, regardless of the information they were based upon. Unlike the previous analysis, there was no main effect for grade, with the second and fourth graders averaging 82.8% and 90.6%, respectively. Confidence ratings. Another set of ANOVAs was conducted on the confi-

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dence ratings the children assigned to their interpretations. No significant effects were obtained for the first interpretations, implying that the second and fourth graders were equally sure that the ambiguous outcome occurred for the reason they specified. There was, however, a significant grade effect for second interpretations, F(1,42) Å 5.78, p õ .05, where the second graders rated their second interpretations (3.17) significantly higher than did the fourth graders (2.72). A grade X rating type ANOVA revealed that children in both grades rated the first interpretations higher than second, F(1,46) Å 88.31, p õ .001, with no other significant effects. This finding shows that although both groups of children were capable of generating multiple interpretations, they believed their first interpretation to be the most viable. Explicit memory performance. A grade (2) X context (3) X clue order (2) ANOVA examining performance on the explicit memory question produced no significant effects. Discussion Overall, the results from the first experiment support and extend those found by both Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) and Ackerman and his colleagues. All of the children were proficient at generating both a first and a second interpretation to the ambiguous physical outcomes. In fact, the percentages of second interpretations made by the second graders are considerably higher than those found by Bonitatibus and Beal, which averaged between 47% to 67%. Developmental differences were revealed, however, in terms of the information that was used to form these interpretations. While the vast majority of first interpretations were based on one of the two clues for both groups of children, the second graders were more likely to bring in extrastory information for second interpretations. The majority of these extrastory responses were based on ideas that were certainly consistent with the stories but utilized events or objects that were never explicitly mentioned. For instance, in one story where a young girl experienced a pain on her arm, one child said that a dragonfly stung her, although only bees were mentioned. Another child said that her brother pinched her, yet a brother was never mentioned. Other responses attributed novel motives to characters that were mentioned in the story, such as one child who said that a carton of milk spilled because the main character did it on purpose. What was rare, however, were responses that directly contradicted information presented in the stories. In addition to utilizing more extrastory information than the fourth graders, the second graders also rated these second interpretations as more plausible, suggesting a distinct willingness to entertain multiple interpretations. These children, then, obviously were sensitive to the ambiguity. Unlike the second graders, however, the fourth graders were more discriminating and more likely to base their second interpretations on one of the clues. Additionally, they were more wary of second interpretations, giving them lower overall

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ratings than the second graders. This implies that they were more sensitive than the second graders to the presence of the two clues, and their relationship to the ambiguity. The results also show that recency of mention plays an important role in resolving interpretive ambiguity. In fact, the pattern of responses actually suggests a combination of influence between the effects of concept accessibility and recency. Not only were more answers based on the second clue (a recency effect), but the recency effect was also stronger if the support clue came second, rather than the neutral clue (an accessibility effect). Precedence for such a combination effect has already been documented, as Ackerman et al. (1990, 1991) found that a title was not sufficient in and of itself to influence inference interpretation. A title did exert an influence, however, when it was combined with either converging clues or context sentences. These findings therefore extend the previous work of Ackerman and his colleagues by showing that concept accessibility can influence not only the resolution of a detected causal inconsistency but also the resolution of interpretive ambiguity. What was interesting was that there was essentially no effect of context in any of the analyses. Although previous work by Ackerman and his colleagues (Ackerman et al., 1990, 1991) has shown that the distance between clues can be an important factor influencing the resolution of an inference, no such finding occurred here. It would appear that the near/far context manipulation was simply unsuccessful at influencing concept accessibility. EXPERIMENT 2 The subtle concept accessibility and recency effects found in Experiment 1 for the fourth-grade subjects raise the possibility that a more powerful biasing context would be more successful at influencing inference resolution. Recall that in Experiment 1 the biasing context sentences only implied an outcome that never actually occurred. This context manipulation may have been weak because many of the children simply did not recognize the similarity between the biasing sentence and the clue sentence. Work on analogical transfer with young children would certainly support this contention, where it has been shown that children do not exhibit much benefit from previous problem similarity unless the similarity is made extremely explicit (e.g., Brown, Kane, & Echols, 1986; Chen & Daehler, 1992). Ackerman’s (Ackerman et al., 1991) finding that a specific context is more likely than a general context to influence inference resolution is also consistent with this idea. The goal of Experiment 2, therefore, was to examine the hypothesis that a more explicit biasing context would exert a stronger effect than found in Experiment 1.

Method Participants. Thirty second graders and 30 fourth graders, drawn from the same population as in Experiment 1, took part. The mean age of the two groups were 8–2 and 10–4, respectively.

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Materials. The same stories from Experiment 1 were used, except that the old biasing context sentences were rewritten to include an explicit mention of an outcome. The concept expressed by this explicit outcome would be reintroduced later when the support clue was encountered. To return to the sinking rowboat example used in Experiment 1, the new explicit version now actually mentioned that the rubber ducky sank to the bottom. Notice how this context explicitly mentions how a hole in the side of an object can make it sink. The only other changes to the stories included some minor wording changes to accommodate the new explicit context sentences and to make the stories more readable. Procedure. The procedure was identical with that used in Experiment 1 with the exception that the explicit memory question (which revealed no interesting effects) was deleted. Results First interpretations. The first analysis was a grade (2) X context (3) X clue order (2) ANOVA, and answers were only counted as valid if they were based on either Clue 1 or 2. Somewhat surprisingly, a main effect for grade was revealed, F(1,54) Å 4.80, p õ .05, where the fourth graders actually provided fewer responses based on the two clues than did the second graders. This result, however, probably reflects nothing more than a Type I error. There were 4 (out of 30) fourth graders who each based one first interpretation on extrastory information while none of the second graders did so. Nonetheless, outside of these four extrastory interpretations by the fourth graders, there were 236 other interpretations that were based on the two clues. It is clear that both groups of children were essentially performing at ceiling on this measure. No other effects were significant. A new analysis was then performed based on the total percentage of answers based on the support clue. Identical with Experiment 1, clue order was the only significant effect, F(1,53) Å 11.73, p õ .01, where more initial answers were based on the support clue if it occurred in Position 2 (74.2%) than in Position 1 (57.5%). Again, this demonstrates a distinct recency effect. The nearness of the context to the two clues had no effect (see Fig. 2). Recency analyses. Recency match scores were again calculated, and the data analyzed with a grade (2) X context (3) by clue type (2) ANOVA. The results mirror those found in Experiment 1, where the only significant effect was for clue type, F(1,54) Å 46.17, p õ .001. The recency effect was stronger when the support clue came second (71.4%) rather than the neutral clue (42.5%). Second interpretations. The pattern of second interpretations found in Experiment 1 was again found here, where second graders made fewer second interpretations based on the two clues (60%) than did the fourth graders (75.8%). When the data were recalculated and reanalyzed to include any

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FIG. 2. Percentage of first interpretations based on the support clue as a function of context bias and clue order.

second interpretations (not just those based on the two clues), no significant differences were found. Confidence ratings. A grade (2) X context (3) by clue order (2) ANOVA revealed that a significant clue order effect for first interpretations, F(1,54) Å 8.35, was qualified by a three-way interaction, F(2,54) Å 4.83, p õ .05. This interaction was examined by looking at context and clue order separately at each of the two grades. For the second graders, stories where the support clue occurred second produced higher ratings than when the support clue occurred first, for both near- and far-bias stories. This same pattern held for the fourth graders as well, except that it occurred for all three context versions. Additionally, there was a context effect for the fourth graders, where ratings were higher for stories in the near-bias and neutral conditions, compared with the far-bias conditions. No significant differences were found on the ratings of the second interpretations. A grade X rating type ANOVA did find that the first interpretations were rated as more plausible than the second, F(1,56) Å 102.38, p õ .001. This finding agrees with the results of Experiment 1.

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Discussion The results of Experiment 2 converge nicely with those of Experiment 1 and again suggest that both recency of mention and clue support are important in determining the resolution of interpretive ambiguity. In particular, young children appear to be strongly influenced by the most recent clue, and recency answers are even more likely when the support clue occurs in the second position. Another important finding that mirrors that found in Experiment 1 is that the second graders were not less likely to generate second interpretations. They were simply more likely than the fourth graders to utilize extrastory information. Taken together, these results suggest that Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) underestimated second graders’ ability in this regard, possibly because they only analyzed responses based on the two clues. An unusual finding from Experiment 2 was the relative failure of the explicit context manipulation. Overall, the majority of the findings were similar to those in Experiment 1 that used an implicit bias. Although the explicit bias was intended to make the reader more aware of the similarity between the concepts expressed by the biasing sentence and the support clue, it was obviously unsuccessful. As discussed previously, research clearly shows that problem similarity must be made explicit for young children to show evidence of analogical transfer (e.g., Brown et al., 1986; Chen & Daehler, 1992). A reasonable conclusion is that the explicit bias manipulation was still too subtle, and many children simply missed the connection because it was not explicitly pointed out. While most of the effects of a biasing context were either small or nonexistent, there was a meaningful three-way interaction involving context in the confidence-rating data. Generally, the children were more confident of their answers when the support clue came after the neutral clue. This trend occurred for the near- and far-bias stories by the second graders and for all versions by the fourth graders. This finding implies that both groups were sensitive to the biasing context if the last clue supported it. Additionally, although both groups overall were equally confident of their answers, the fourth graders’ ratings were affected by context. They were more confident in the near-bias and neutral versions than in the far-bias versions. The fourth graders appeared to recognize that separating biasing information from an ambiguous outcome makes the interpretation of the outcome more difficult. The second graders did not yet seem to appreciate this fact. Collectively, this pattern of results suggests that the fourth graders, but not the second graders, were more sensitive to concept accessibility. EXPERIMENT 3

Although the use of explicit contexts in Experiment 2 was designed to increase the likelihood of finding strong context effects, thereby reflecting

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increased concept accessibility, this just did not occur. In fact, in both Experiments 1 and 2, context had surprisingly little effect. Nevertheless, work by Ackerman et al. (1990, 1991) suggests that some text manipulations can influence the resolution of an ambiguous outcome. More specifically, Ackerman et al. found that titles can exert a beneficial effect in terms of resolving a causal inconsistency. Although not affecting concept availability per se, titles do affect the use of already activated concepts (i.e., concept accessibility). Experiment 3 was therefore designed to extend Ackerman and colleagues’ findings to a situation involving interpretive ambiguity. The far-bias stories from Experiment 1 were used here, and titles were added that differentially supported the implicit biasing context. The rationale behind the use of the implicit context/far-bias stories from Experiment 1 was that any significant effects due to title would be especially convincing if the context bias was only implicit, and if the bias was separated from the two clues by a number of intervening sentences. Method Participants. Twenty-four second and 24 fourth graders, drawn from the same population as the previous experiments, participated. The mean age of the two groups of children were 8–2 and 10–4, respectively. Materials and procedure. The far-bias stories from Experiment 1 were used, and each story was given one of three titles. A title could emphasize the concept expressed by both the biasing context and the support clue (support clue title), emphasize the concept expressed by the neutral clue (neutral clue title), or simply be a generic title that mentioned the ambiguous outcome without referencing any of the biasing concepts. For the rowboat story discussed previously, the support clue title was The Leaky Boat, the neutral clue title was Too Many People in the Boat, and the generic title was The Sinking Boat. The procedure was identical with that in Experiment 1, with title manipulated between-subjects. Results First interpretations. Answers based on Clues 1 and 2 were entered into a grade (3) X title (support clue, neutral clue, generic clue) X clue order (2) ANOVA. A significant grade X title interaction revealed that fourth graders gave more first interpretations based on Clues 1 and 2 (100%) than did the second graders (92.3%) for the support clue title stories, F(2,42) Å 4.71, p õ .05, with no other significant effects. As with the previous experiments, however, both groups were very adept at providing first interpretations, averaging 96.3% and 99.0%, respectively. The answers were then recalculated and reanalyzed based on agreement with the support clue. A significant effect for title was found, F(2,42) Å 6.01, p õ .01, and Newman-Keuls comparisons showed that answers were more often based upon the support clue in stories with a support clue title

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FIG. 3. Percentage of first interpretations based on the support clue as a function of title and clue order.

(68.0%) than in stories with a neutral clue title (46.1%). None of the other comparisons were significant (see Fig. 3). This finding indicates that a concept emphasized by a title that also happens to be later emphasized by both biasing context and a support clue is the one a reader is most likely to use to resolve an ambiguous text. This is strong evidence that the children were sensitive to the manipulation of the title, and it seemed to help keep the biasing concept accessible, even given the distance between the biasing context and the two clues. Although only suggestive, the data discussed above hint that this effect reflects both the facilitation of the concept emphasized by the support clue as well as the inhibition of the concept stressed in the neutral clue. The generic title stories, which stressed no concept at all, produced only 58.6% of responses based on the support clue. Although not significantly different, the comparable value for the support clue title stories was 68.0% (suggesting facilitation), while it was 46.1% for the neutral clue title stories (suggesting inhibition). While no clear conclusions regarding the effects of facilitation versus inhibition on concept accessibility can be made, the data do support

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FIG. 4. Percentage of recency answers as a function of type of second clue and title.

the idea advanced here: The most accessible concepts are the ones used most often to resolve interpretive ambiguity. A second significant effect was found for clue order, F(1,42) Å 4.22, p õ .05). As shown in Fig. 3, answers were more often based upon the support clue if it was the second clue encountered (64.6%) rather than the first (50.5%). As before, this pattern clearly demonstrates a recency effect. Recency analyses. As before, a grade (2) X title (3) X clue type (2) ANOVA was conducted on the recency match scores for the first interpretations. A main effect for clue type, F(1,42) Å 7.30, p õ .01, was qualified by an interpretation involving title, F(2,42) Å 7.24, p õ .01. Simple effects analyses revealed that more recency answers were given when the support clue came second, but only for stories with a support clue title, F(1,15) Å 15.00, p õ .01. These results are shown in Fig. 4. Incidentally, although not significant, this pattern was actually reversed for the neutral clue title stories. For them, more recency answers occurred when the neutral clue came second. Second interpretations. A grade (2) X title (3) ANOVA on the second interpretations based on Clues 1 or 2 revealed only a main effect for title, F(2,42) Å 4.94, p õ .05. Newman-Keuls comparisons showed that stories

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with a support clue title produced fewer second interpretations (50.5%) based on the two clues than did either stories with a neutral clue title (72.7%) or a generic title (65.6%). When the data were reanalyzed to include any second interpretation, the results were similar. A main effect for title, F(2,42) Å 3.30, p õ .05), showed that stories with a support clue title produced fewer second interpretations (71.1%) than stories with a generic title (89.1%). Although the difference between the support clue title and neutral clue title stories (85.2%) did not reach conventional levels of significance (p Å .063), the pattern was the same as that observed in the first analysis. Confidence ratings. The data were analyzed in two separate grade (2) X title (3) X clue order (2) ANOVAs. No significant effects were obtained in either analysis, suggesting that both groups of children were equally confident of their answers. A grade X rating type ANOVA found that the first interpretations were rated as more plausible than the second, F(1,45) Å 77.21, p õ .001. This matches the previous findings. Discussion. What is clear from these results is that a title can selectively enhance the use of various concepts used to resolve an ambiguity, as suggested by Ackerman et al. (1990, 1991). This conclusion is seen most clearly in the support clue title stories. A title that emphasized the concept expressed by both the biasing context and the support clue made the children more inclined to base their first interpretation on the support clue. Or to put it another way, concept use was heavily influenced by converging sources of bias. The data also suggest that a title can have beneficial effects above and beyond those attributable simply to the biasing context. Although not statistically significant, more first interpretations were based on the support clue for the support clue title stories (68.0%) compared with the generic title stories (58.6%). Both of these stories had the same biasing context, yet the stories with a support clue title provided an additional source of concept bias. This finding coincides with that of Ackerman et al. (1990, 1991) and suggests that some titles can effectively influence the use of already activated concepts. Of course, not just any title will do. Generic titles that simply reference an outcome with no mention of potential causes are much less effective in drawing attention to the support clue. In fact, a post hoc t test was performed to compare the effectiveness of the generic title stories with the no title/farbias stories used in Experiment 1. The data from the two grades were collapsed, and a t test was performed on the percentage of stories where the first interpretations were based on the support clue. Interestingly, the generic title (58.6%) was no more likely to bias interpretation in favor of the support clue than was no title (57.8%). Taken together, the results found here suggest that the beneficial effects of a title appear to operate by enhancing the accessibility of a concept introduced in the biasing context. When the two clues are later encountered (after the interval of filler sentences), the clue that emphasizes the concept expressed by both the context sentence and the title is therefore more likely to be chosen

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to guide the interpretive process. The present results thus suggest that a title is most beneficial when two conditions are met: (1) when the concept emphasized by the title matches the concept used by both the biasing context and the support clue, and (2) when the support clue occurs last. As the concept emphasized by the title changes or the concept emphasized by the last clue no longer matches that emphasized by the biasing context, the reader is less certain about what concept to base interpretations on. As a result, fewer interpretations coincide with the biasing context and involve either the neutral clue or extrastory information. The success of the title manipulation can also be seen in the recency analyses. The first two experiments showed that recency of mention worked hand-in-hand with the support clue; first interpretations were more often based on the second clue, and the recency effect was stronger when the second clue was the support clue. While this pattern also occurred in the present experiment, it was limited to stories that had a support clue title. The reverse pattern, although not significant, occurred for the neutral clue title stories. Here, the recency effect was stronger for the neutral clues. What these findings imply is that the titles were effective in enhancing the accessibility of the relevant concept, because the clues that emphasized those concepts were more likely to form the basis of the interpretation. The interpretation of the title effect for second interpretations is consistent with these arguments as well and suggests that the children understood that a title seems to indicate what a story is about. Recall that fewer second interpretations occurred for stories with a support clue title. A plausible interpretation of this finding is that the concepts influenced by the titles of these stories generally formed the basis of the first interpretation because they were most accessible. As a result, because other concepts received little emphasis (especially the concept implied by the neutral clue), the children were not as inclined to offer second interpretations. The neutral clue title and generic title stories, however, did emphasize concepts different from those in the biasing context, and they therefore competed with them. The end result was that more second interpretations were generated for these stories. In fact, if this interpretation is correct, it would be expected that the generic title stories should have produced the most second interpretations, because story concepts were least emphasized (i.e., least accessible) in these stories. Although not significantly different from the neutral clue title stories, this is exactly what was found. EXPERIMENT 4

As alluded to in the introduction, one of the curious findings in the Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) study was the relatively weak effect of final biasing sentences on interpretive ambiguity. In their first two experiments, two versions of their stories ended with sentences that biased one of the two previous clues. Their proximal-bias versions biased the second clue, while their distal-

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bias versions biased the first clue. The only significant effect involving this text manipulation was that more recency answers occurred for the proximalbias and unbiased stories. This weak effect is somewhat surprising, given the results of Experiment 3 as well as the work of others that has shown strong text effects (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991; Schmidt et al., 1984). Experiment 3 convincingly showed that titles could mediate the resolution of interpretive ambiguity. Nonetheless, it should be pointed out that the stories used by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) were only five sentences long, and as such, precluded the possibility of strong text effects. Indeed, outside of the two clue sentences, there was no additional contextual information that the final biasing sentence could bias. Therefore, it remains to be seen whether or not final biasing sentences can strongly influence ambiguity resolution by making some concepts more accessible than others, as suggested by the findings of Ackerman (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman et al., 1991), as well as the results of the first three experiments. This formed the primary goal of Experiment 4. In order to more fully examine the role of final biasing sentences, stories that provide more contextual information than those used by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) are necessary. Final biasing sentences were therefore added to the stories from Experiment 3. The biasing contexts presented early in these stories provide concepts that can be made potentially more accessible by final biasing sentences. Additionally, the use of longer stories should promote more inferential activity (e.g., Magliano, Baggett, Johnson, & Graesser, 1993; Morrow, Bower, & Greenspan, 1990; Till, Mross, & Kintsch, 1988; van den Broek, 1994), which may also have a beneficial effect on ambiguity resolution. It was therefore hypothesized that the final biasing sentences would enhance the accessibility of the concepts they biased and work hand-in-hand with other sources of concept accessibility. Specifically, it was hypothesized that more first interpretations would be based on the support clue if the final biasing sentence biased the same concept. Note that if this hypothesis was not supported, it would seriously undermine the basic argument proposed throughout this series of experiments: that any manipulation that enhances concept accessibility ought to influence ambiguity resolution. An additional goal of Experiment 4 was to further examine the children’s understanding of the ambiguity. In addition to answering the two questions about what caused the outcome, the children were also asked if both interpretations could have occurred, as an initial attempt to examine developmental differences in the willingness to accept ambiguity. This additional question was based on previous work by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996), who first examined this issue by having children generate blended interpretations. Bonitatibus and Beal found that fourth graders were much more likely to suggest blended interpretations than were second graders (57% vs 39%). It is possible, however, that this developmental difference is

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limited to production and does not reflect a difference in the willingness to accept ambiguity. In other words, young children may be quite likely to accept ambiguity in text but have difficulty actually generating a plausible scenario that incorporates both clues. Therefore, as a way of providing a first look at this idea, children were simply asked a ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’ question about whether or not both of their interpretations could have occurred (assuming they generated two interpretations). Method Participants. Twenty-four second graders and 24 fourth graders, drawn from the same population as the previous experiments, were used. The mean ages of the two groups of children were 8–5 and 9–9, respectively. Materials. The stories used in Experiment 3 were used here, without any titles. In two of the versions, the final neutral sentence of each story was replaced with a biasing sentence that either biased the second clue (proximal bias) or the first clue (distal bias). In the no-bias versions, the final sentence was simply a concluding filler sentence. For the rowboat story mentioned earlier, the final sentence in the proximal-bias version was After the boys jumped out, the rowboat slowly came back to the surface, while in the distalbias version the final sentence was The rowboat had filled with water so fast that the boys did not even have time to bail it out. Procedure. The procedure was identical with that in Experiment 3 with one exception. After rating their confidence in their two interpretations, the children were asked if both of their interpretations could have occurred. This was done to see if there were any developmental differences in the willingness to accept ambiguity. Results First interpretations. Answers based on Clues 1 or 2 were entered into a grade (3) X text type (proximal-bias, distal-bias, no-bias) X clue order (2) ANOVA. There were no significant effects, with over 96% of the responses of both groups based on the first or second clue. The answers were then recalculated in terms of agreement with the support clue, and these data were reanalyzed. In this new analysis, a significant main effect for text type, F(2,42) Å 6.60, p õ .01), revealed that more answers were based on the support clue for stories in the no-bias version (75.0%) than in either the proximal-bias (50.0%) or distal-bias (60.9%) versions (all ps õ .01). This main effect was also involved in an interaction with clue order, F(2,42) Å 12.80, p õ .001, which was examined by comparing clue order at each of the three different text types. These analyses showed that more answers were based on the concept in the support clue when the emphasis from the final biasing sentence was also on that concept. In other words, if the support clue occurred first, the distal-bias stories promoted more answers based on the support clue. If the support clue occurred second, then the proximal-bias stories promoted

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FIG. 5. Percentage of first interpretations based on the support clue as a function of clue order and text type.

more answers based on the support clue (ps õ .01). Clue order made no difference for the no-bias stories. These results are shown in Fig. 5. Recency analyses. The recency match scores were analyzed with a grade (2) X text type (3) X clue type (2) ANOVA. Main effects for text type, F(2,42) Å 9.24, p õ .001, and clue type, F(1,42) Å 20.63, p õ .001, were qualified by a significant interaction involving these two factors, F(2,42) Å 3.89, p õ .05. Simple effects analyses revealed that the recency effect was stronger for the support clues but only for the proximal-bias and no-bias stories (ps õ .05). Clue type was not significant for the distal-bias stories. This is exactly the pattern that would be expected if recency plays a role in the resolution of interpretive ambiguity. Second interpretations. A grade (2) X text type (3) ANOVA limited to answers based on Clues 1 or 2 revealed a main effect for grade, F(1,42) Å 7.23, p õ .05, where the fourth graders offered more second interpretations (67.2%) than did the second graders (49.5%). When the analysis was expanded to include all second interpretations, including those based on extrastory information, the main effect for grade remained, F(1,42) Å 8.11, p õ .01.

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The fourth graders again offered more total second interpretations (81.8%) than did the second graders (62.5%). For those children who did provide second interpretations, their answers to the question ‘‘Could both causes have occurred?’’ were entered into a grade (2) X text type (3) ANOVA. A significant grade effect, F(1,39) Å 5.47, p õ .05, revealed that second graders were more likely to state that both causes could have occurred (74.8%) than were the fourth graders (56.7%). A main effect for text type was also found, F(2,39) Å 4.81, p õ .05. NewmanKeuls comparisons showed that both the proximal- and distal-biased stories produced more ‘‘both could have occurred’’ answers (77.6% and 69.9%, respectively) than did the no-bias stories (49.7%). Confidence ratings. Two grade (2) X text type (3) X clue order (2) ANOVAs on the confidence-rating data revealed no significant effects. A grade X rating type ANOVA did find that the first interpretations were rated as more plausible, as would be expected, F(1,43) Å 102.54, p õ .001. Discussion What is clear from these results is that both clue support and the presence of a final biasing sentence had large effects on the resolution of interpretive ambiguity. This is probably best seen in the text type X clue order interaction found in the analysis on first interpretations. Answers based on the concept emphasized by the support clue were always most frequent in the condition where the final biasing sentence also emphasized it. In other words, if the support clue occurred first, then the distal-biasing stories prompted the most support clue answers. If the support clue occurred second, then the proximalbiasing stories prompted the most support clue answers. The main text type effect found in this same analysis also illustrates the complementary role played between the final biasing sentence and the support clue. More answers were based on the concept emphasized in the support clue in the no-bias stories than in either the proximal- or distal-bias stories. This effect would be expected for one simple reason: The two biasing versions of the stories often presented dual interpretive emphases, while the no-bias versions did not. In both of the biased versions, the support clue concept often was a concept different from the one emphasized by the final biasing sentence. In fact, the interpretation suggested by the concept in the support clue and that suggested by the concept in the final biasing sentence converged only half of the time. For the other half, the concept in the support clue emphasized one interpretation, while the concept in the final biasing sentence emphasized an alternative and competing interpretation. The lack of a final biasing sentence in the no-bias stories, however, meant that the strongest interpretive emphasis should have been on the concept raised by the support clue because there were not other competing concepts. This dual emphasis found in the biased versions would also suggest that they would get more

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‘‘both could have occurred’’ answers than the no-bias versions, and this is exactly what occurred. The importance of converging sources of emphasis is also illustrated in the recency analyses: The recency effect was stronger in the proximal- and no-bias stories when the support clue came second. This pattern would be expected for the proximal-bias stories because the emphasis from the final sentence also matched that of the support clue. Due to the lack of a final biasing sentence in the no-bias stories, however, the two most plausible sources of interpretive emphasis should have been the concepts emphasized in the most recent clue and/or the support clue. If the most recent clue also happened to be the support clue, more recency match answers should be found. This is exactly what occurred. This pattern would not be expected in the distal-bias stories, however, because the sources of influence did not converge. In these stories, the final sentence biased the concept in the first clue, so the fewest interpretations based on the concept in the second clue should have been occurred. This was found as well. In addition to the text-based effects, there were some interesting developmental differences. Unlike the previous three experiments, the grade effect found here for second interpretations suggests that the fourth graders were more sensitive to the interpretive ambiguity. They were much more likely than the second graders to say that something else could have occurred, regardless of what they based those second interpretations on. Keep in mind, however, that they were less likely than the second graders to say that these interpretations could have co-occurred. This is an interesting finding and suggests that while the second graders were actually quite willing to entertain the possibility of multiple interpretations of the text, they could not spontaneously generate them as well as the fourth graders. Conversely, the fourth graders, while sensitive to the ambiguity present in the stories, also realized that the co-occurrence of both outcomes was improbable. This finding extends that of Bonitatibus and Beal (1996) and suggests that the developmental limitation facing second graders is not one of accepting the possibility of multiple interpretations but one involving the production of multiple interpretations, as well as the understanding that ‘‘good’’ stories generally do not have multiple interpretations. GENERAL DISCUSSION

Are young children sensitive to interpretive ambiguity? Interestingly, the answer to this question is not as simple as it may at first seem. To a large extent, the answer depends upon how interpretive ambiguity is defined. Consider the definition adopted by Bonitatibus and Beal (1996). Although not explicitly stated, they limited their definition to include only interpretations based on clues presented in the story. This is implied in their analysis of second interpretations, where they only included as valid answers that were based on one of the two clues. Their results convincingly showed that second

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graders were not as likely as fourth graders to offer multiple interpretations, suggesting a definite developmental trend. If Bonitatibus and Beal’s (1996) definition is adopted in this study, then some support can be offered for their conclusion. In Experiments 1, 2, and 4, the second graders were less likely than fourth graders to offer second interpretations. Nonetheless, there was no grade effect found in Experiment 3, which suggests that second graders are not always less sensitive. Conversely, if the definition of interpretive ambiguity is broadened to include any second interpretation, including those that emphasize information not presented in the text, then the conclusions change as well. With this new definition, second graders generally do not appear less sensitive than fourth graders (Experiments 1, 2, and 3), with both groups offering comparable numbers of second interpretations. While it might be argued that this broadened definition misses the point of what it means to be sensitive to interpretive ambiguity (because fanciful interpretations are included), the evidence simply does not support this. Recall that there generally were no differences between the two grades in the likelihood of basing first interpretations on either Clues 1 or 2 (Experiments 1 and 4). In fact, Experiment 2 found that fourth graders were actually less likely to provide first interpretations based on the two clues than were the second graders. Only in Experiment 3, and then only for the support clue title stories, were fourth graders more likely to base first interpretations on the two clue sentences. Collectively, these results on the first interpretations suggest that the two grades were equally sensitive to the potential interpretations offered by the two clues. However, when it came to second interpretations, the second graders did not feel as constrained by the text as did the fourth graders. The point made above is important. Children as young as the second grade can show evidence of being sensitive to interpretive ambiguity because they can offer multiple interpretations. They simply have not yet appeared to learn that the rules of discourse comprehension generally limit valid interpretations to those suggested by the text. In this regard, then, the results found here do support the conclusions of Bonitatibus and Beal (1996). The view that young children are less sensitive to what comprises a good interpretation of a story, and not just multiple interpretations per se, is also bolstered by the findings of Experiment 1. In that experiment, the fourth graders rated the plausibility of second interpretations lower than did the second graders. Experiment 4 also showed that fourth graders think it less likely that multiple causes can co-occur than do second graders. Again, this seems to reflect an increased sensitivity to knowledge of what makes a ‘‘good’’ story. This pattern of findings is important, because it argues against the simplistic view that young children are incapable of generating multiple interpretations. Instead, it argues that findings of developmental improvement of reinterpretive ability (e.g., Beal, 1990b; Bonitatibus & Beal, 1996) must be carefully considered in light of one’s definition of valid second interpretations. The results

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also suggest that future research ought to more carefully examine children’s understanding of story constraints. A final point needs to be made concerning the role of concept accessibility. It is clear from the results that Ackerman and his colleagues (Ackerman et al., 1990; Ackerman & Jackson, 1991; Ackerman & McGraw, 1991) are correct in arguing that concept accessibility is important in determining how to resolve an ambiguous text. Furthermore, the results not only apply to resolving causal inconsistencies, as found by Ackerman, but also apply to resolving interpretive ambiguity, as found here. This point is probably most convincingly illustrated by the results of Experiments 3 and 4. In both experiments, the resolution of the interpretive ambiguity was guided by the concept that had the most converging emphasis. In Experiment 3, answers were most frequently based on the concept in the support clue (which matched the bias from the biasing context) when the title also emphasized this concept. In Experiment 4, answers were most frequently based on the concept in the support clue when the final biasing sentence also biased it. The results from Experiments 1 and 2 also support this conclusion. More answers were based on the concept in the second clue, and this recency effect was even stronger if the second clue also happened to be the support clue. This again illustrates the importance of converging sources of bias. What these findings suggest is that the more emphasis a particular concept has, the more accessible it will be. Therefore, when the time comes to resolve interpretive ambiguity, the resolution process will be strongly guided by the most accessible concepts. In conclusion, it would appear as if children even as young as the second grade are sensitive to interpretive ambiguity. Although children this young seem to exhibit less of a tendency to stick to the story, they are capable of generating multiple interpretations to ambiguous outcomes, and the vast majority of their answers are based on clues within the stories. These young children also appear to be sensitive to the same sorts of interpretive influences that guide adults, with concept accessibility playing a prominent role. It would appear that the main developmental improvement that still remains to be exhibited is an understanding of appropriate story constraints. The young children studied here exhibited a surprising tendency to utilize extrastory information when an ambiguous outcome was reinterpreted. REFERENCES Ackerman, B. P. (1986). Referential and causal coherence in the story comprehension of children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 41, 336–366. Ackerman, B. P. (1988). Reason inferences in the story comprehension of children and adults. Child Development, 59, 1426–1442. Ackerman, B. P., & Jackson, M. (1991). When is a guess a guess: Children’s sensitivity to inference constraint in assessing understanding of story information. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 52, 117–146. Ackerman, B. P., & McGraw, M. (1991). Constraints on the causal inferences of children and adults. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 52, 364–394.

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Ackerman, B. P., Paine, J., & Silver, D. (1991). Building a story representation: The effects of early concept prominence on later causal inferences by children. Developmental Psychology, 27, 370–380. Ackerman, B. P., Silver, D., & Glickman, I. (1990). Concept availability in the causal inferences of children and adults. Child Development, 61, 230–246. Acredolo, C., & Horobin, K. (1987). Development of relational reasoning and avoidance of premature closure. Developmental Psychology, 23, 13–21. Baker, L. (1984). Spontaneous versus instructed use of multiple standards for evaluation comprehension: Effects of age, reading proficiency, and type of standard. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 38, 289–311. Beal, C. R. (1990a). The development of text evaluation and revision skills. Child Development, 61, 247–258. Beal, C. R. (1990b). Development of knowledge about the role of inference in text comprehension. Child Development, 61, 1011–1023. Bonitatibus, G. J., & Beal, C. R. (1996). Finding new meanings: Children’s recognition of interpretive ambiguity in text. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 62, 131–150. Brown, A. L., Kane, M. J., & Echols, C. H. (1986). Young children’s mental models determine analogical transfer across problems with a common goal structure. Cognitive Development, 1, 103–121. Chang, F. R. (1980). Active memory processes in visual sentence comprehension: Clause effects and pronominal reference. Memory & Cognition, 8, 58–64. Chen, Z., & Daehler, M. W. (1992). Intention and outcome: Key components of causal structure facilitating mapping in children’s analogical transfer. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 53, 237–257. Dopkins, S., Klin, C., & Myers, J. L. (1993). Accessibility of information about goals during the processing of narrative text. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 19, 70–80. Gernsbacher, M. A. (1989). Mechanisms that improve referential access. Cognition, 32, 99–156. Gernsbacher, M. A. (1991). Cognitive processes and mechanisms in language comprehension: The structure building framework. In G. H. Bower (Ed.), The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 27: Advances in research and theory (pp. 217–263). Orlando, FL: Academic Press. Gernsbacher, M. A., & Hargreaves, D. J. (1988). Accessing sentence participants: The advantage of first mention. Journal of Memory and Language, 27, 699–717. Gernsbacher, M. A., Hargreaves, D. J., & Beeman, M. (1989). Building and accessing clausal representations: The advantage of first mention versus the advantage of clause recency. Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 735–755. Goldman, S. R., & Varnhagen, C. K. (1986). Memory for embedded and sequential story structures. Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 401–418. Graesser, A. C., Bertus, E. L., & Magliano, J. P. (1995). Inference generation during the comprehension of narrative text. In E. J. O’Brien & R. F. Lorch (Eds.), Sources of coherence in reading, (pp. 295–320). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Jarvella, R. J. (1971). Syntactic processing of connected speech. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 10, 409–416. Jarvella, R. J. (1973). Co-reference and short-term memory for discourse. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 98, 426–428. Magliano, J. P., Baggett, W. B., Johnson, B. K., & Graesser, A. C. (1993). The time course of generating causal antecedent and causal consequence inferences. Discourse Processes, 16, 35–53. Marslen-Wilson, W., Tyler, L. K., & Seidenberg, M. (1978). Sentence processing and the clause boundary. In W. J. M. Levelt & G. B. Flores d’Arcais (Eds.), Studies in the perception of language (pp. 219–246). London: Wiley.

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McKoon, G., & Ratcliff, R. (1989a). Inferences about contextually defined categories. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 1134–1146. McKoon, G., & Ratcliff, R. (1989b). Semantic associations and elaborative inference. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 15, 326–338. Morrow, D. G., Bower, G. H., & Greenspan, S. L. (1987). Accessibility and situation models in narrative comprehension. Journal of Memory and Language, 28, 165–187. Morrow, D. G., Bower, G. H., & Greenspan, S. L. (1990). Situation-based inferences during narrative comprehension. In A. C. Graesser & G. H. Bower (Eds.), The psychology of learning and motivation, Vol. 25: Inferences and text comprehension (pp. 123–135). San Diego, CA: Academic Press. Schmidt, C. R., Schmidt, S. R., & Tomalis, S. M. (1984). Children’s constructive processing and monitoring of stories containing anomalous information. Child Development, 55, 2056– 2071. Thompson, J. G., & Myers, N. (1985). Inferences and recall at ages four and seven. Child Development, 56, 1134–1144. Till, R. E., Mross, E. F., & Kintsch, W. (1988). Time course of priming for associate and inference words in a discourse context. Memory & Cognition, 16, 283–298. van den Broek, P. (1994). Comprehension and memory of narrative texts: Inferences and coherence. In M. A. Gernsbacher (Ed.), Handbook of psycholinguistics (pp. 539–588). New York: Academic Press. Zabrucky, K., & Ratner, H. H. (1986). Children’s comprehension monitoring and recall of inconsistent stories. Child Development, 57, 1401–1418. RECEIVED: October 2, 1995;

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