Storage and processing constraints on integrating story information in children and adults

JOURNAL

OF EXPERIMENTAL

CHILD

PSYCHOLOGY

38,

64-92 (1984)

Storage and Processing Constraints on Integrating Story Information in Children and Adults BRIAN P. ACKERMAN University

of Delaware

In two experiments, this study examined the effects of integration complexity on the ability of child and adult listeners to integrate information from different sentences in a story. First and third graders and college adults were read stories containing incongruent event information and succeeding resolution information that explained the incongruency, and asked questions that probed incongruency recognition and resolution. Information storage complexity was manipulated by separating the event and resolution information and foregrounding or backgrounding the focal story characters. Processing complexity was manipulated by varying the inferential complexity of relating the resolution to the incongruent information, and the coreferential cues linking the event and resolution information. The results showed that increases in complexity adversely affected resolution integration, and more for the children than for the adults. The children’s integration performance, in particular, was affected by theme discontinuity and coreferential complexity.

To understand an utterance in a discourse context, a listener must integrate information in different sentences. Recent research has indicated that young children may be especially poor in accomplishing this integration. For example, Markman (1979) found that 8- and 9-year-old children seem to do line-by-line processing and may not relate propositional information between sentences. Similarly, Ackerman (1978, 1982a, 1983b) has suggested that 6- and 7-year-olds may fail on occasion to comprehend extraliteral and nonliteral uses of utterances because of a failure to integrate utterance and contextual information. The present study examines some factors that may contribute to children’s relative inability to integrate information between sentences. The This research was supported by Grant HDl.5932-01 from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development. I thank the children, teachers, and principals, Don Schneck, Guy Molock, Jack Neill, Milt Markeley, and Neil Decima, of the Cobbs, Wilson, Kemblesville, Drew/Pyle, and Stubbs elementary schools, respectively. I also thank Pete Idstein of the Christina School District, and especially Jill Rathbum for her help in conducting the study. Please send reprint requests to Brian Ackerman, Department of Psychology, University of Delaware, Newark, DE 19711. 64 0022~0965/84 $3.00 Copyright All rights

0 1984 by Academic Press, Inc. of reproduction in any form reserved.

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task focuses on children’s ability to resolve a problem for comprehension by integrating resolving information with incongruent story event information. The design of the study is based on three ideas. The first, examined also in Ackerman (1984), is that information storage and processing complexity independently constrain the integration of information between sentences (cf. Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Brainerd, 1982; Daneman & Carpenter, 1980). Information processing here refers to the processing of propositional information in a sentence such that the information is understood, and can be related to information in other sentences. Information storage refers to the retention or continuous activation of sentence information in working memory (cf. Baddeley & Hitch, 1974; Gianzer, Dorfman, & Kaplan, 1981). The second is that integration is aided by textual devices that cue information structure (cf. Irwin, Bock, & Stanovich, 1982). These devices link related propositions and set the stage for integration. The third is that integration may also be aided by internal monitoring cues that help link related propositions. Examination of the developmental implications of the second and third ideas is new to this study. Both storage and processing complexity were manipulated in two ways. One way focused on the propositional information in the sentences per se; the other way focused on the textual devices linking propositions. Storage difficulty was varied, first, by placing incongruent events adjacent to, or separated by two or three 8ller sentences from resolving information. Previous research (cf. Ackerman, 1984; Glanzer et al., 1981) has shown that two- or three-sentence separations seem to tax adults’ memory for target information. Second, the continuity of story information was varied in that the theme that related incongruent and resolution information was either foregrounded or backgrounded (cf. Lesgold, Roth, & Curtis, 1979) in the filler sentences. It was assumed that backgrounding would increase storage difficulty since “reinstatement” or reactivation of backgrounded material takes time and requires effort (cf. Foss, 1982; Lesgold et al., 1979). Foregrounding ensures that a theme or a focal character maintains a privileged position in working memory (cf. Bock & Irwin, 1980) and thus may help to link thematically related propositional arguments (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Processing difficulty was manipulated, first, by varying the relatedness of the resolving to the incongruent information. The resolving information was either directly and obviously relevant to the incongruency or the information was abstracted from the direct information and was thus only indirectly relevant. Presumably, processing the resolving information so that it can be integrated with other information requires more inferential effort for the indirect information (cf. Ackerman, 1984). Second, kind of coreferential textual cue was varied. Textual cues help

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establish subject identity between propositions, and so may help to relate the propositions (cf. Clark & Sengul, 1979; Daneman & Carpenter, 1980; Ehrlich & Johnson-Laird, 1982; Garrod & Sanford, 1981; Irwin et al., 1982; Yekovich & Walker, 1978). Further, as shown in work on bridging inferences (cf. Clark & Haviland, 1977), establishing subject identity or coreference between propositions may require varying degrees of inferential processing effort, depending on the definiteness of the referring expressions. Definiteness was varied by establishing subject identity in the incongruent sentences with a proper name (e.g., Jill), and either repeating the proper name in the resolving information sentence, or substituting a more ambiguous short definite description (e.g., The student). The study addresses several specific questions. The first concerns whether increments in storage and processing complexity are independent to any extent, and affect the integration of incongruent and resolving information. The effects can be established by comparing resolution performances in the situations of the least integration complexity with more complex situations, and by examining the interactions of the storage and processing complexity increments. The second question concerns the degree to which increments in complexity differentially affect the resolution integration of children and adults, and in particular, whether young children can reinstate backgrounded information and make bridging inferences to relate propositions. The third question concerns whether children and adults can use internal cues arising from the overt recognition of incongruency to help relate incongruent and resolution information. To examine the issue the opportunity to use internal cues was varied in two experiments. In both experiments subjects were asked three questions about story events. The Expectation question probed understanding of the incongruent event information. The Resolution question probed resolution of the incongruency and essentially took an answer opposite to that for the Expectation question in resolved stories. The Memory question probed fact memory and served as a control for memory differences in the integration process. In Experiment 1, first and third graders and college adults were asked all three questions at the end of each story. Assuming incongruency recognition occurs mainly in response to the Expectation probe, placing all the questions at the end minimizes any opportunity to use an internal incongruency cue to prepare for resolving information. The opportunity was varied in two ways for third graders and adults in Experiment 2. For all subjects, the Expectation question was asked right after the incongruent events and before the resolution information was presented (i.e., the story was interrupted). This placement presumably increases the opportunity to use the internal cue strategically. For the SeZf Cue groups, subjects were instructed simply to listen and comprehend, as in Experiment 1. For the Instructed Cue groups, subjects were informed

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about the possible presence of incongruent events and resolution information. If directed or informed cue use is more efficient than undirected use (cf. Markman & Gorin, 1981), the instructional manipulation may affect resolution integration performance (cf. Ackerman, 1984; Cirilo, 1981; Pratt, Luszcz, Mackenzie-Keating, & Manning, 1982). EXPERIMENT

1

Method Subjects

Ninety-six children from each of the first (mean age = 6.5, range 6.0 to 6.11) and third (mean age = 8.6, range 7.10 to 9.3) grades and ninetysix college adults participated. The children were from public elementary schools serving middle and lower income communities in Newark and Wilmington, Delaware. The adults were University of Delaware students who participated for course credit. All the subjects were white; half of each group were male. Design

The experiment used a 3 (Grade: First, Third, or College) x 3 (Separation: Adjacent, Two Sentences, or Three Sentences) x 2 (Coreference Cue: Name Repetition or Definite Description) x 2 (Theme Continuity: Foreground or Backgrounded) x 3 (Resolution Type: Indirect Resolving, Direct Resolving or Nonresolving) mixed factorial design, with the last two factors within subjects, for the incongruent stories. Performance on the incongruent stories was compared also to performance on control stories containing congruent event information. Materials

Eighteen short six-sentence stories were prepared. Sixteen of the stories were experimental stimuli; the other two were for pretraining. Examples can be seen in Table 1. In general, each story contained contextual event information that described an action by a named child character (sentence 1 in the Table), and a description of a contingent response by a named adult character (sentence 2), story filler information (sentences 3, 4, and 5), and resolution information presented at the end of the story (sentence 6). In each story the congruency of the child action and the adult response, and the separation and relation of the response and resolution information was manipulated independently. Concerning congruency, each story was written with alternative descriptions of two kinds of child actions that varied in relation to the fixed adult response. In the Congruent contexts, the adult’s response was appropriate for the action. In the Incongruent contexts, the adult’s response was the opposite of what would be expected normally, and so was inappropriate and surprising. In all cases, the child’s

TABLE SAMPLE

STORIES

AND

1 QUESTIONS

1. (1) Jill had [all good] [all terrible]” grades on her report card in March. (2) When she gave it to her father, he said he was proud of her. * (3) (The father) (Jill)* put his/her coat on. *(4) (He) (She) was going to walk the dog. (5) (The father) (J&l) picked up the dog chain.* (6) Indirect: (Jill) (The student)’ had been very sick. Direct: (Jill) (The student) had been very sick and hadn’t been to school for three months. Nonresolving: (Jill) was a good student. QUESTIONS:

1. Did you think her father was going to be angry/pleased?d (Expectation) 2. Was it in February/March? (Memory) 3. Should she have gotten in trouble/encouragement for her report card? (Resolution) 2. *

(1) Glenn [crashed into] [avoided] a person in front of his neighbor’s house on his new red ten speed bicycle. (2) When his parents heard about the incident, they praised him. (3) (The parents) (Glenn) were/was going on a vacation. *(4) (They) (He) gathered all their/his clothes. (5) (The parents) (Glenn) got out the suitcases. *(6) Indirect: (Glenn) (The rider) had stopped a burglar. Direct: (Glenn) (The rider) had stopped the burglar of his neighbor’s house. Nonresolving: (Glenn) (The rider) was a good bike rider.

QUESTIONS:

1. Did you think the parents were going to be happy/mad? (Expectation) 2. Was the bicycle red/green? (Memory) 3. Should the parents have rewarded/punished Glenn? (Resolution) 3. (1) Mrs. Bradley dropped one of her three bags of groceries and Jason rushed over to [m] [steal some food]. (2) Mrs. Bradley yelled at Jason and told him to get away. * (3) (Jason) (Mrs. Bradle4I) fixed his/her coat. *(4) (He) (She) went into the store. (5) (He) (She) talked to the clerk. *(6) Indirect: (Mrs. Bradley) (the shopper) had bought a lot of bottles. Direct: (Mrs. Bradley) (the shopper) had smashed soda bottles and there was dangerous glass everywhere. Nonresolving: (Mrs. Bradley) (the shopper) didn’t want to lose any food. QUESTIONS:

1. Did you expect Mrs. Bradley to be angry/pleased with Jason? (Expectation) 2. Did Mrs. Bradley have two/three bags of groceries? (Memory) 3. Should Mrs. Bradley have yelled at/spoken softly and nicely with Jason? (Resolution) 4. (I) Billy was running in a race for adults in his new red shorts and finished [thirtieth] [second]. (2) After the race, the judge gave Billy a medal. * (3) (The judge) (Billy) walked over to the coach. *(4) (The judge) (Billv) handed the coach a towel. (5) Then (the judge) (Billy) went to sit down. *(6) Indirect: (Billy) (the runner) was in elementary school. Direct: (Billv) (the runner) was the only small elementary school child in the race since all the rest were adults in college. Nonresolving: (Billy’s) (the runner’s) track team lost badly. QUESTIONS:

1. Did you think Billy was going to win a medal/nothing? (Expectation) Were Billy’s shorts red/green? (Memory) 3. Should Billy have been rewarded/scolded for finishing where he did? (Resolution)

2.

’ 1-1 is incongruent and [ ] is Congruent event information. *Signals ditferent separations of the event information (1 and 2) from the resolving information (6). The first * is a threesentence separation, the second * is a two-sentence separation, and the third * signals adjacent positions. * (-) Signals Foregrounded and ( ) Backgrounded information. ’ For the resolving information sentence 6, (-) shows the name repetition and ( ) the definite description. d Alternate “yes” and “no” forms of each question were asked. 68

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action was described in a sentence immediately preceding the adult’s response. Concerning separation, the action and response sentences (sentences 1 and 2) were placed in a paragraph position adjacent (paragraph positions 4 and 5) to the resolution information (paragraph position 6) separated by two sentences (paragraph positions 2 and 3) or separated by three sentences (paragraph positions 1 and 2) from the resolution information. In each of these conditions, story filler information was read in the other paragraph positions. In the Adjacent stories, filler sentences occupied paragraph positions 1, 2, and 3; in the Two-Sentence stories, the first filler sentence (sentence 3 in Table 1) occupied paragraph position 1, and the other filler (sentences 4 and 5) occupied paragraph positions 4 and 5; in the Three-Sentence stories, the three filler sentences occupied paragraph positions 3, 4, and 5. The Resolution part of each story (sentence 6) addressed the relation between the child’s action and the adult’s response. The Direct Resolving information supplied a reason for the incongruency of the adult’s response. The relation of the reason to the incongruency was obvious. The Indirect Resolving information also supplied a reason for the incongruency, but the relation was not obvious, and was only apparent inferentially. In each case, the Indirect reason was an abstraction from the direct reason. For example, the Direct reason why a father would say he was proud of a child who got a bad report card, was that the child had been “very sick and hadn’t been to school for three months.” The Indirect abstraction was that the child “had been very sick.” The Nonresolving information was a paraphrase, or elaboration, of some aspect of the event information that made the incongruency more salient in the incongruent stories, and the adult’s response more motivated in the congruent stories. In addition to these variations, the story filler information and the subject nouns in the resolution sentences were manipulated. Concerning the latter, either the name of the focal character was repeated (Name Repetition) or a short definite description (see Ackerman, 1979) was substituted for the name (e.g., “the shopper” for “Mrs. Bradley,” “the hiker” for “Edward,” and “the bike rider” for “Glenn”). In 14 of the 16 experimental stories, the focal character was the child character; in the other two the adult was focal. This variation was used to detect possible biases concerning character ages (see Ackerman, 1983a). However, the variation did not affect responses in any way, so it will not be mentioned again. Concerning the former, the story filler information described actions either by the focal (Foregrounded) or the nonfocal (Backgrounded) character. Eight lists of the 16 experimental stories were created to counterbalance for the factorial combinations of contextual congruency, type of resolving information, and thematic continuity for each story. Each list contained 12 stories with Incongruent contexts, and 4 stories with Congruent contexts.

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For the 12 Incongruent context stories, 4 stories contained each of the three types of resolving information; the Congruent context stories were read only with the Nonresolving information. Across the lists, each story was read equally often with each of the four combinations of context and resolution information (Incongruent contexts with Direct Resolving, Indirect Resolving, and Nonresolving information, and Congruent contexts with Nonresolving information). In addition, in each list, two stories of each of the four stories of each context/resolution combination type contained Foregrounded and two contained Backgrounded filler information. Stories with Foregrounded information in one list had Backgrounded information in a second, and vice versa. The story presentation order was chosen randomly but was the same for each list. The purpose of the fixed order was to equate for story presentation position for each combination of contextual resolution and filler information across lists, and thus control for serial position list effects and the possible effects of performance improvement throughout each list. Three questions were generated for each story. The questions were the same for all lists. Examples can be seen in Table 1. The Expectation question asked whether the subject thought that the child character would be rewarded, or would get in trouble. The Resolution question asked whether the adult should have responded in a particular way. Note that the Expectation and Resolution questions probe independent aspects of the episodic information. The Memory question asked about the characteristics of some factual information given in the sentence describing the child’s action. Two forms of each kind of question were created so that correct “yes” or “no” answers could be varied and so that the numbers of such answers could be equated in each list. Except for the last constraint, the patterns of “yes” and “no” answers for the questions for each story were chosen randomly. The questions were always asked in the order Expectation, Memory, Resolution. This order was used in order to encourage independent answers to the first and last questions, and so that the procedures of Experiments 1 and 2 could be as similar as possible. Procedure

With the exception that sex was balanced for the between subject factors, the subjects were assigned randomly to a list, separation, and coreference cue condition. Two subjects in each grade were assigned to each of the eight lists for each between subject condition. Each subject was told he or she would be read short stories and asked three questions after each story about what happened in the story. The questions should be answered “yes” or “no,” and the subject should guess if the answer was unknown or could not be figured out. The third graders and adults wrote their answers on answer sheets. The spoken responses of the first

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graders were recorded by the experimenter. The subjects were told that the answers to the first question (the Expectation question) could not be changed, but other question answers could be changed. Each subject was then read and quizzed on the pretraining stories as a demonstration of the procedure. One story contained congruent events, and one contained incongruent events with Direct Resolving information. In both stories, event and resolution information was Adjacent and linked by a Name Repetition. Incorrect answers were corrected, and the reason for the correction was explained. Correction was rarely necessary for subjects in any group. Then the experimental stories and questions were read by the experimenter. No feedback was given for any answer. Results The answers to the three questions were analyzed independently in both experiments in this study. Also in both experiments, preliminary analyses indicated that the response patterns did not differ as a function of list assignment, or as a function of whether the questions took “yes” or “no” answers, so these factors were excluded from subsequent analyses. All the major effects in the analyses reported were analyzed by subsequent analyses of simple effects and Tukey B analyses, where appropriate. Unless otherwise noted, the major effects were significant at least at p < .OOl. The significance level for the Tukey B tests was set at p < .Ol . In addition, analyses of both the Expectation and Resolution question answers were performed for the individual paragraphs, treating grade as a fixed factor. These analyses showed that the paragraphs did not differ systematically in any way. Expectation

Question

The Expectation question answers were scored as denial responses. A denial response indicated surprise at the adult character’s contingent response. Denial responses were appropriate for the Incongruent but not for the Congruent contexts. The numbers of denial responses were analyzed in two ways, First, to determine the overall patterns of incongruency recognition, the numbers of denial responses for the Incongruent stories for each subject was divided by 3 (to equate denial opportunities), and this number was compared with the numbers of denial responses for the Congruent stories in a 3 (Grade) x 2 (Context Type: Congruent or Incongruent) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. As can be seen in the last column of Table 2, denial responses did not differ between grades for the Congruent contexts (mean = 14.2, 20.1, and 17.1%, for the first and third graders and adults, respectively). However, as shown by the Grade x Context Type interaction, F(2, 285) = 21.41, MS, = .21, the adults (97.7%) made more denial responses than the first (87.3%) or third (83.8%) graders, who did not differ, for the Incongruent contexts.

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BRIAN P. ACKERMAN TABLE

2

MEAN PERCENTAGE DENIAL RESPONSES TO THE EXPECTATION CONGRUENT AND INCONGRUENT CONTEXTS FOR EACH KIND

Incongruent Grade First Name Repetition Definite Description Third Name Repetition Definite Description College Name Repetition Definite Description Mean Name Repetition Definite Description

QUESTIONS FOR THE OF COREFERENCE CUE

Contexts

Indirect Resolving

Direct Resolving

Nonresolving

Congruent contexts

88.9 87.5

89.6 76.4

86.1 95.1

13.9 14.6

85.4 90.3

80.6 73.6

80.6 92.4

20.8 19.4

98.6 97.9

98.6 97.2

95.1 98.6

21.5 12.5

91.0 91.9

89.6 82.4

87.3 95.4

18.7 15.5

Second, to determine the influence of the Resolution information on incongruency recognition, the numbers of denial response for the Incongruent paragraphs alone were analyzed by means of a 3 (Grade) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 2 (Theme Continuity) x 3 (Resolution Type) mixed analysis of variance, with the last two factors within subjects. The analysis showed no effects for theme continuity. In order to increase the number of observations per subject from two to four, and reduce the possibility of spurious floor effects, the data were collapsed across theme continuity and a four-way analysis was performed. The relevant data here are displayed in the Incongruent context columns in Table 2. The only important finding is that type of context affected the denial responses only for the children and only in the Definite Description condition, as shown by simple effects analysis of the Grade x Coreference Cue x Resolution Type interaction, F(4, 540) = 5.51, MS, = .12. Tukey B analyses showed that denial responses for the definite descriptions occurred significantly less often in the Direct Resolving than in the other contexts for each group of children. There were no effects attributable to the separation variable. Resolution Question The Resolution question answers were scored as resolution acceptances. Resolution acceptances, in effect, contradict Expectation question denials, and hence represent a change in the subject’s perception of the incongruency in the Inconsistent paragraphs. An acceptance, then, is the

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operational measure of the subject’s integration of Incongruent and Resolution information. The data were analyzed in several ways to facilitate focal comparisons. The first comparison concerned resolution performance for the Incongruent stories only. Similar to the procedure for the Expectation questions, the data were analyzed with and without theme continuity as a factor. Only the latter analysis is reported. The reason is that the second graders did poorly in the Backgrounded continuity conditions: Correct performance never exceeded 20.0%. Given that there were only two possible observations per subject, the poor performance resulted in spurious floor effects in the analysis including theme continuity. Collapsing across theme continuity increased the possible observations to four per subject, and reduced the potential for floor effects. In addition, both the absolute numbers of acceptances and the numbers of acceptances conditional on denial responses to the Expectation questions were analyzed. Since the results of these analyses were the same, only the former analysis is reported. The second comparison focused on the effects of theme continuity. The third comparison was of performance for the Incongruent and Congruent stories. This comparison was used to detect possible response biases. In the first comparison, the numbers of acceptances were analyzed by means of a 3 (Grade) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 3 (Resolution Type) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. The mean percentages of Resolution acceptances are displayed in Table 3 collapsed across theme continuity. Interpretation of the effects of the analysis is based on the central findings that, first, acceptances occurred more often for Resolving than for Nonresolving information, F(2, 540) = 228.73, MS, = .47. This difference will henceforth be termed the “Resolution Effect.” Tukey B tests showed the effect was significantly greater for the Direct than for the Indirect Resolving information. Second, acceptance rates for the Nonresolving information were stable across all the other factors. The stability is evident in the Nonresolving rows in Table 3. Thus, any variations in Resolution Effects for the other factors reflect variation in acceptances for the Resolving information only. Individual Resolution Effects can be determined in Table 3 by subtracting Nonresolving from Resolving information acceptance percentages. Nonsignificant differences (i.e., difference scores approaching zero) indicate chance responding, since acceptances for the Nonresolving information can only reflect guessing. The mean percentage of Resolution Effects resulting from the subtraction process are shown in Table 4. In general, Table 4 shows that the Resolution Effect decreased with factors hypothesized to affect integration difficulty. The decreases can be seen in the Mean rows in Table 4 by comparing the Resolution Effect in the least complex Adjacent/Name Repetition/

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BRIAN P. ACKERMAN TABLE

3

MEAN PERCENTAGE ACCEPTANCE RESWNSES TO THE RESOLUTION QUESTIONSFOR THE INCONGRUENT CONTEXTS FOR EACH KIND OF COREFERENCE CUE, AND RESOLUTION INFORMATION FOR THE ADJACENT (ADI.), TWO-SENTENCE (2), AND THREESENTENCE (3) SEPARATIONS

Name Repetition Grade First Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving Nonresolving Third Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving Nonresolving College Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving Nonresolving

Definite Description

Adj .

2

3

Adj .

2

3

Mean

35.4 79.2 14.6

29.2 47.9 14.6

14.6 14.6 14.6

10.4 29.2 16.7

12.5 18.8 12.5

18.8 12.5 16.7

20.2 33.7 15.0

60.4 83.3 12.5

35.4 56.3 14.6

29.2 41.7 6.3

29.2 58.3 12.5

25.0 39.6 6.3

22.9 25.0 12.5

33.7 50.7 10.8

87.5 79.2 18.8

41.7 66.7 20.8

50.0 50.0 20.8

70.8 66.7 12.5

25.0 72.9 8.3

43.8 50.0 27.1

53.1 64.3 18.1

TABLE MEAN

4

PERCENTAGE RESOLUTION EFFECTSO FOR THE INCONGRUENT CONTEXTS FOR EACH KIND OF COREFERENCE CUE AND RESOLUTION INFORMATION FOR THE ADJACENT (ADJ.), TWO-SENTENCE (2) AND THREE-SENTENCE (3) SEPARATIONS

Name Repetition Grade First Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving Third Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving College Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving Mean Indirect Resolving Direct Resolving

Definite Description

Adj .

2

3

Adj .

2

3

Mean

20.8 64.6

14.6 33.3

0.0 0.0

-6.3 12.5

0.0 6.3

2.1 -4.2

5.2 18.7

47.9 70.8

20.8 41.7

22.9 35.4

16.7 45.8

18.7 33.3

10.4 12.5

21.9 39.9

68.7 60.4

20.9 45.9

29.2 29.2

58.3 54.2

16.7 64.6

16.7 22.9

35.0 46.2

45.8 65.3

18.8 40.3

17.4 21.5

22.9 37.5

11.8 36.8

9.7 10.4

20.7 34.9

a The Resolution Effect is the difference between acceptances in the Resolving and Nonresc$ving contexts.

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Direct Resolving condition, the baseline reference condition, with the effects in the other conditions. The decreases are also documented in the analysis in that the two-way interactions of Separation x Resolution Type, F(4, 540) = 22.86, MS, = .47, and Coreference Cue x Resolution Type, F(2, 540) = 11.72, MS, = .47, were significant. Simple effects analyses of these interactions, plus the main effect for Resolution Type, indicate that the Resolution Effect (i.e., differences between resolving Nonresolving information) was larger in the baseline than in the other conditions. It is also important to note that there were no developmental differences in the Resolution Effect in the baseline condition. The mean percentages of effects were 64.6, 70.8, and 60.4, for the first and third graders, and adults, respectively. Note that the relatively low percentages here are averaged across the theme continuity variable, and so reflect reduced resolution performance in the Backgrounded conditions, as well as the correction for guessing measured by resolution acceptances in the Nonresolving information. The specific effects of each of the complexity increments taken singly varied with grade. For the separation variable, the major effects included the Separation x Resolution Type, F(4, 540) = 22.86, MS, = .47, and Grade x Resolution Type, F(4, 540) = 18.09, MS, = .47, interactions, and the interaction of all three factors, F(8, 540) = 6.35, MS, = .47. Analyses of simple effects suggest that the effects of the separation complexity increment can be interpreted in the following way. First, increasing separation systematically reduced the Resolution Effect for Direct Resolving information (mean = 5 1.4, 37.5, and 16.0% for Adjacent, and Two-, and Three-Sentence separations, respectively), as shown by Tukey B analyses. For the Indirect information, the Resolution Effect was reduced by Two-Sentence separation (from 34.0% for Adjacent to 15.3%) but was not reduced further by Three-Sentence separation (13.6%) perhaps due to floor effects. In addition, the Resolution Effect was significantly larger for the Direct than for the Indirect information only for the Adjacent (51.4% vs 34.0%) and Two-Sentence conditions (37.5% vs 15.3%). Second, the children seemed more affected by the separation increments than the adults. The developmental effect is seen most clearly in the Resolution Effects for the Direct information in Table 4, collapsed across Coreference Cue, in that Two-Sentence separations affected the performances only of the children (mean difference from Adjacent to TwoSentence = 18.8, 20.8, and 2.0% for the first and third graders and college adults, respectively), and Three-Sentence separations reduced the first graders’ performance to chance levels. Chance here reflects a lack of difference in responding in the Resolving and Nonresolving contexts, as established by analysis of simple effects. These analyses also established that the children were more affected

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by the Resolution type increment than were the adults, although performance improved with grade for each kind of Resolving information, as shown in the Mean column of Table 4. The children’s difficulty with Indirect information is shown most clearly in the Adjacent condition, where performance was worse for the Indirect information only for the children, and in the fact that the first graders’ performance was at chance levels for the Indirect information. The coreference cue effects are described by the Grade x Coreference Cue x Resolution Type interaction, F(4, 540) = 4.22, p < .005, A4S, = .47. Congruent with the other increment effects, simple effects analysis showed that the children’s performance was more affected by the Definite Description increment than was the performance of the adults. For example, the Mean performance decrement for the Definite Descriptions relative to the Name Repetitions, was 20.4, 17.0, and 3.5% for the first and third graders and college adults, respectively, and the first graders’ performance for the Definite descriptions was not better than chance. Because of floor effects for the first graders, interactions of the processing and storage variables, and the effects of adding complexity increments, could not be determined. To gain a sense of these integration effects, independent 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 3 (Resolution Type) analyses of variance were performed for each grade. A summary of the results of these analyses can be seen in Table 5. Table 5 clarifies several trends in Table 4. First, floor effects contributed to most of the effects for the first graders. As shown in Table 5, all the factors interacted because single complexity increments in any one of the factors tended to reduce performance to chance levels. Second, for the other subjects, separation effects are independent of the effects associated with the Coreference Cues, (e.g., no A x B interactions) but TABLE SUMMARY

OF THE SIGNIFICANT

EFFECTS RESOLUTION

5

OF THE INDIVIDUAL ANALYSES QUESTION ACCEPTANCE

OF EACH

GRADE

FOR

F values First

Source

Third

College

Separation (A) Coreference Cue (B) AxB

2,90 1.90 2,90

16.2 33.5 11.4

13.5 13.3 -

14.6 5.28 -

Resolution Type (C) AxC BxC AxBxC

2,180 4,180 2,180 4,180

28.2 12.1 14.5 3.7

125.3 7.3 7.8 -

94.4 13.8 3.10b -

a All values are significant at least at the p < .Ol level unless otherwise noted. b F, < .05.

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do interact with Resolution Type, perhaps due to floor effects for ThreeSentence separation. For the adults especially, adding increments associated with Indirect Information and Two-Sentence separation dramatically impairs resolution performance. For example, as shown in Table 4 collapsed across Coreference Cue, the adult mean Resolution Effect in the Indirect/ Two-Sentence situation is reduced to 18.8%. Floor effects may have obscured this trend in third graders. Third, for the adults, especially, Coreference Cue interacted with Resolution Type in that resolution performance was impaired by the Definite Descriptions only for Indirect information. For example for the adults, the mean percent difference in Resolution Effects from the Name Repetitions to the Definite Descriptions was -2.0 and 9.0 for the Direct and Indirect information, respectively. Floor effects obscure interpretation of this interaction for third graders. In sum, the evidence suggests that single-complexity increments involving the propositional and referential relatedness and the separation of sentence information impair the ability of children more than adults to integrate information between sentences. Single increments reduce the performance of first graders to chance levels. Third graders and adults are able to tolerate single increments but adding increments seems to penalize performance in ways not predictable from single-increment penalties. The exception is that separation increments seem independent of coreference increments. The second comparison concerned theme continuity. Again to minimize the contribution of floor effects, and maximize the power of the manipulation, the acceptances for each type of continuity were summed across the Direct and Indirect Resolution types. This was possible because the mean acceptance rate differences were similar (as shown by t tests) for the Direct and Indirect information in the cells of the experiment not showing floor effects (i.e., mostly for the third graders and adults). The data were then analyzed by means of a 3 (Grade) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 2 (Theme Continuity) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. The major effects involving the continuity variable were the main effect for Continuity, F(1, 270) = 206.32, MS, = .54, and the Grade x Continuity, F(2, 270) = 3.07, p < .05, MS, = 54, and Separation X Continuity, F(2, 270) = 4.70, p < .Ol, MS, = .54, interactions. Since there were no effects for Coreference Cue other than the effects reported previously, the mean percent acceptance responses are displayed in Table 6 collapsed across the coreference variable. Note that the table reflects absolute acceptance rates, and not the Resolution Effect, since the Resolution Type contrast was not part of the analysis. As shown in the Mean columns, and as determined by analysis of simple effects, the grade interaction occurred because the children were more affected by the Backgrounded increment in the Adjacent and Two-Sentence conditions

78

BRIAN P. ACKERMAN TABLE

6

MEAN PERCENTAGE ACCEPTANCE RESPONSES TO THE RESOLUTION QUESTIONS FOR THE INCONGRUENT CONTEXTS FOR EACH KIND OF SEPARATION AND THEMATIC CONTINUITY

Grade First Foregrounded Backgrounded Third Foregrounded Backgrounded College Foregrounded Backgrounded Mean Foregrounded Backgrounded

Adjacent

2 Sentences

3 Sentences

Mean

53.1 24.0

42.7 11.5

28.1 0.0

41.3 11.8

66.7 49.0

59.4 18.7

40.6 18.7

55.6 28.8

80.2 71.9

64.6 41.7

63.5 34.4

69.4 49.3

66.7 48.3

55.6 24.0

44.1 17.7

than were the adults, though even the adults showed inferior performance for the Backgrounded stories. The Backgrounded increment also tended to reduce first graders’ performance to chance levels. For example, the children’s Mean Backgrounded acceptance rate (11.8%) is not .different from the Mean acceptance rate for the Nonresolving contexts (15.0%) shown in Table 3, which is the estimate of guessing performance. The separation interaction occurred because the separation increments affected the Backgrounded more than the Foregrounded stories. The differential effects are shown in the Mean rows of Table 6 in that the Mean acceptance rate difference between the Adjacent and Three-Sentence conditions was 30.6% for the Backgrounded and 22.6% for the Foreground stories. Backgrounded story performance was especially affected by TwoSentence separation (mean difference from the Adjacent condition = 24.3%). The third and final comparison focused on acceptances in the Congruent contexts. The similar mean acceptance rates between grades for the Nonresolving information in the Incongruent contexts (shown in Table 3) establishes that there was no systematic bias in guessing rates or in accepting false resolutions that could have contributed significantly to the developmental patterns concerning resolution integration. It remains possible, however, that bias in affirming propositions and questions could have contributed to these patterns. Acceptance responses in the Congruent paragraphs can be used to detect such bias since question acceptances are appropriate (i.e., because the resolution information is consistent a priori) independently of any Resolution Effect or change of interpretation. However, a 3 (Grade) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) analysis of variance of the acceptance rates for the between subject variables

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indicated that though the adults (mean = 91.3%) did make more acceptances than either the third (78.7%) or first (80.4%) graders, F(2, 270) = 12.11, MS, = .45, the differences were relatively small and did not vary with either Separation or Coreference Cue (F’s < 1.0 for all other effects). This source of bias, then, probably did not contribute substantially to the patterns of Resolution Effects for these variables. Memory Question

The mean percentage correct can be seen in Table 7. The correct answers for the between subject variables were analyzed by means of a 3 (Grade) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) analysis of variance. The results showed that adults (mean = 91.2%) recalled more than did the third (76.3) and first (78.7) graders, who did not differ, F(2, 270) = 64.01, MS, = 2.00. However, the difference was constant across all the other variables. There were no other effects. Discussion The purpose of the Expectation questions was to provide overt evidence that the subjects processed and understood the incongruent sentences that were to be integrated with the resolution information. Discussion of the results for these questions will precede discussion of the focal resolution integration results. In addition, discussion of the theoretical significance of the latter will be left mainly for the General Discussion. First, some important caveats. Incongruency recognition, here, constitutes a problemfor comprehension, in the sense that the incongruency requires, or invites, solution processes to make coherent sense of the TABLE MEAN

PERCENTAGE

7

CORRECT RESPONSES TO THE MEMORY QUESTIONS FOR EACH COREFERENCE CUE AND SEPARATION _

Separation Grade First Name Repetition Definite Description Third Name Repetition Definite Description College Name Repetition Definite Description Mean Name Repetition Definite Description

Adjacent

2 Sentences

3 Sentences

Mean

80.7 76.6

78.6 80.2

76.0 80.2

78.4 79.0

75.5 76.6

76.0 78.1

75.0 16.6

75.5 77.1

90.6 90.1

90.1 91.7

97.9 87.0

92.9 89.6

82.3 81.1

81.6 83.3

83.0 81.3

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P. ACKERMAN

discourse episode, but not necessarily a problem of comprehension, in the sense that the sentence information is not understood. Similarly, “recognition” concerns only the gross acknowledgement of event incongruency, and not necessarily the cognitive state of incomprehension or uncertainty about what has been heard. These distinctions are important because there is no claim here, nor evidence presented so far, that internal cognitive states necessarily drive integration performance. Evidence bearing on this separate issue will be presented in Experiment 2. The most important result concerning problem recognition performance was that subjects in all the grades showed excellent discrimination between the Incongruent and Congruent stories in making denial responses for the Expectation questions. The excellent performance was shown in that even the first graders recognized most of the problems for comprehension. However, recognition performance did increase slightly, but significantly, with grade, and for the children, kind of resolution information influenced recognition performance to a small extent. Neither of these developmental differences pose a serious problem for evaluation of resolution performance in the experiment because the effects were small, and because analysis of resolution performance conditionalized on correct recognition performance produced results similar to the analysis of absolute resolution performance. There are two other sources of spurious developmental difference that also could have affected the resolution integration patterns. First, memory for factual information may affect integration performance and distort effects attributable to integration difficulty alone. This kind of problem frequently occurs in developmental tasks that tap information integration (cf. Brainerd, 1982) like transitive inference tasks. However, though the adults did indeed have better memory for factual information in the Incongruent contexts than did the children, the differences were relatively small, there were no consistent differences between the first and third graders, and memory performance did not vary with any of the factors that affected resolution integration performance for any group. From these results, it is reasonable to conclude that fact memory differences were not responsible for the integration performance patterns. The second source concerns response biases. Perhaps the resolution patterns were due to differences with grade in the likelihood to answer questions “yes” or “no.” The similarities in response patterns between grades for the Nonresolving information for the Inconsistent contexts, and for the Consistent contexts, indicates that these biases were not major contributors to the resolution patterns. Instead, the results suggest that the resolution patterns can be attributed to differences in integration difficulty. The results support several conclusions. First, in situations of minimal storage and processing complexity, even first graders can integrate information between sentences, and resolve

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problems for comprehension. For example, there were no developmental differences in Resolution Effects in the least complex baseline situations for the Foregrounded stories (mean effects = 79.2, 83.3; and 75.0% for first and third graders and college adults, respectively). Second, as shown by the interactions with Resolution type, and the main effect for Theme Continuity, information integration between sentences is adversely affected by increments in either storage or processing complexity. These increments include storage and processing operations performed on propositional information in each sentence, and the use of textual devices that help relate sentences. Backgrounding theme information increases complexity relative to Foregrounding, as does the use of Definite Description Coreference Cues, relative to Name Repetitions. The complexity increments affected all the subjects with one exception: The adult acceptance rate for Indirect Resolution information was not different from the rate for Direct Resolution information in the least complex integration situations. However, this finding is also important in that it shows the adults considered the Indirect Resolution information to be equally relevant to the Direct Resolution information for incongruency resolution. It is also interesting that theme Backgrounding resulted in performance decrements even in the Adjacent conditions. In this condition the Backgrounded story information preceded both the congruent and resolution information. Apparently Foregrounding of theme information even prior to presentation of a problem for comprehension aids understanding of the problem. The facilitation may reflect the operation of some form of an immediacy effect (cf. Foss, 1982; Just & Carpenter, 1980) in that activation of information, or a theme, in working memory facilitates the processing of thematically related lexical information presented later. Third, the evidence suggests that storage and processing complexity may contribute independently to integration difficulty, at least to some extent. The independence is shown best in the separate analysis of the adult responses where the performance patterns were not influenced by floor effects. For example, Coreference Cue interacted with type of resolution information, Combining the inferential processing complexity increments contributed by the Definite Descriptions and the Indirect Resolution information disproportionately penalized integration performance. Similarly, the storage increments interacted: Theme continuity interacted with separation in that performance was particularly poor for the Backgrounded stories for the Two- and Three-Sentence separation conditions. However, in general, the processing variables did not interact with the storage variables. A similar result was found in Ackerman (1984) for adults for different processing and storage manipulations. The one exception to the independence was the interaction of Separation and type of resolution information. This particular interaction was not found in

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Experiment 2 or in Ackerman (1984), but it suggests that independence may break down in some situations, and must be considered cautiously. Fourth, the ability to tolerate increments in either storage or processing complexity in integrating information between sentences appears to increase with age. For storage, the increase suggests children are able to store less propositional information in working memory than are adults (see Glanzer et al., 1981) and are less able to reinstate to active memory information that has been Backgrounded and displaced or rendered inactive (cf. Lesgold et al., 1979). The most salient evidence in support of these conclusions was that Backgrounding and Three-Sentence separation (indeed Two-Sentence separation in most situations) reduced the integration performance of the first graders to chance levels. For processing, children seem less able to operate on or transform different sources of propositional information so that an operational “fit” can be achieved, and less able to accomplish coreferential bridging inferences than are adults. This processing seems preparatory to integration. The best evidence again comes from the chance performance of the first graders for the Definite Descriptions and the Indirect Resolution information. When the fit was obvious, as for the Direct information, and coreference ensured by the Name Repetition, resolution integration could be accomplished. As suggested earlier, one problem with these results, and the experimental design, is that the sequential contingency of the answers to the Expectation and Resolution questions may provide only limited insight into any causal contingency between incongruency recognition and resolution processes. So, for example, the experiment tested problem recognition and resolution at about the same time, at the end of each story. This procedure minimizes the possible use of any internal cognitive cues arising from incongruency recognition, and hence the effects of cognitive monitoring on resolution performance. In addition, there is little direct evidence that incongruency recognition necessarily was associated with internal cognitive states, or that these internal cue states drove resolution performance. Note that these problems concerning causal contingency do not vitiate the focal resolution results, which only concern constraints on integrating incongruent sentence and resolution information. By design, the Expectation questions were used only to ensure that the incongruent information was processed and understood and not that incongruency recognition drove resolution performance. Experiment 2 was conducted to gain more evidence about the causal effects of internal cognitive cues and monitoring on resolution performance. To maximize the opportunity to use these cues, the incongruency recognition probes (i.e., the Expectation questions) occurred right after the incongruent event information and before the resolution information was presented, and the subjects were either instructed or not instructed about the possible presence and resolution of the comprehension problems.

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OF STORY

INFORMATION

83

Only third graders and college adults participated because previous research (cf. Ackerman, 1984) has shown that first graders’ performance is not affected by resolution instructions. Any effects of these experimental manipulations concerning the use of incongruency recognition, compared to the results of Experiment 1, provide evidence that internal cues may arise from problem recognition, and may drive resolution performance, in certain circumstances. Developmental effects provide evidence about gross differences in the generation and use of these cognitive cues. EXPERIMENT Method

2

Subjects

One hundred ninety-two third graders (mean age = 8.8, range 7.11 to 9.5) and one hundred ninety-two college adults participated. The subjects were taken from the same populations as those used in Experiment 1. All were white, and half in each group were female. Experiment 2 was conducted by the same experimenters as in Experiment 1, and subject participation in each grade commenced immediately after Experiment 1 was completed. Design

and Materials

The design was the same as the design in Experiment 1, except that two incongruency monitoring conditions were added: Self Incongruency Cue and Instructed Incongruency Cue. Subjects in these conditions were asked the Expectation questions in the middle of each paragraph, after the adult character’s response and before the resolution information was read. The Self Cue groups received the same instructions as in Experiment 1; the Instructed Cue groups were informed about the potential incongruency and the presence of resolution information. The design compares performance in the Self and Instructed Cue conditions against performance in Experiment 1, termed the End Incongruency Cue condition. Experiment 1 materials were used. Procedure

The procedure was the same as in Experiment 1, with these exceptions. First, all subjects were told that each story had two parts, and questions would be asked after each part. The Expectation question was asked after the first part, the rest of the story was read, and then the Memory and Resolution questions were asked. Second, the Instructed Cue groups were told in addition that many of the stories contained incongruent events, or happenings that were unexpected and made no sense. Each subject was told also that in some cases information would be given after the events that resolved the incongruency and enabled the subject to

84

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P. ACKERMAN

make sense of the story. The subject was instructed to listen carefully for resolving information and try to figure out why the incongruent events happened. The procedures were illustrated carefully with the pretraining stories. For these stories for all subjects, incorrect answers were corrected and the reason for the correction was explained, if necessary. Corrections occurred rarely. Results and Discussion The effects of the recognition probe placement and instructions in the experiment were contrasted with the control data for the third graders and adults in Experiment 1. The logic of the analyses for all the questions was similar to the logic in Experiment 1. Expectation Question The first analysis compared the number of denial responses, divided by 3, in the Incongruent contexts versus the numbers in the Congruent contexts by means of a 2 (Grade) x 3 (Incongruency Recognition Cue: End, Self, or Instructed) x 2 (Context type: Congruent or Incongruent) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. There were no effects attributable to the Incongruency Cue variable. The major reason was that there was essentially a denial response floor effect for the Congruent and a ceiling effect for the Incongruent contexts, and hence little variation was possible. For the Incongruent contexts alone, the denial responses were analyzed by means of a 2 (Grade: Third, and College) x 3 (Incongruency Cue: End, Self, or Instructed) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 3 (Resolution Type) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. Again, there were no systematic effects attributable to the Incongruency Cue variable. Resolution Question There were three focal analyses, similar to those reported in Experiment 1. The first concerned resolution performance for the Incongruent stories only. The acceptances were analyzed by means of a 2 (Grade) x 3 (Incongruency Cue) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 3 (Resolution Type) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. Theme continuity was excluded. Apart from the Incongruency Cue variable, the only effect that differed from those reported in Experiment 1 concerned Separation: the decline from the Adjacent to the Three-Sentence Separation condition was similar for Direct (mean decrease = 30.0%) and Indirect (mean decrease = 25.0%) information. The similarity was due entirely to the Self and Instructed Cue groups, as shown by the Separation x Detection Cue x

INTEGRATION

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OF STORY INFORMATION

Resolution Type interaction, F(8, 1080) = 5.24, MS, = .41, since Separation interacted with the Direct and Indirect resolution information in Experiment 1. The overall linearity is evidence for the independence of the contributions of storage (Separation) and processing (Resolution Type) complexity to resolution integration performance. The Incongruency Cue effects included the Grade x Incongruency Cue x Resolution Type interaction, F(4, 1080) = 19.56, MS, = .41, and the further interactions of these three factors with Separation, F(8, 1080) = 4.75, MS, = .41, and Coreference Cue, F(4, 1080) = 3.77, p < .005, MS, = .41. For the three-way interaction analysis of simple effects and Tukey B comparisons showed that the Resolution Effects were larger in the Instructed (mean = 76.3%) than in the Self (58.9%), and in the Self than in the End (40.7%) Cue conditions for the adults, but there were no systematic differences overall for the third graders (28.3, 27.8, 31.5%, respectively). The three-way interaction occurred because there were no changes in acceptances for Incongruency Cue in the Nonresolving contexts. However, the third graders’ performance was facilitated by the instructions in the Adjacent condition (mean Resolution Effects = 54.2, 38.6, and 45.3% for the Instructed, Self, and End conditions, respectively). The facilitation is shown in Table 8, especially for the Direct information, and was documented by independent Grade x Incongruency Cue x Resolution Type analyses of variance for each level of the separation variable. Similarly, the performance of the third graders was facilitated by the instructions for the Definite Descriptions (mean Resolution Effects = TABLE MEAN

PERCENTAGE

RESOLUTION AND

8

EFFECTS”

FOR EACH

INCONGRUENCY

End Cue Grade Third Adjacent 2 Sentences 3 Sentences Mean College Adjacent 2 Sentences 3 Sentences Mean

KIND

OF SEPARATION

CUE

Self Cue

Instructed Cue

Direct

Indirect

Direct

Indirect

Direct

Indirect

58.3 31.5 24.0 39.9

32.3 20.0 16.7 23.0

54.2 36.4 18.8 36.5

22.9 24.0 10.4 19.1

71.9 34.4 16.7 41.0

36.4 1.3 3.1 15.6

57.3 55.2 26.0 46.2

63.5 18.8 22.9 35.1

79.2 76.0 54.2 69.8

53.1 54.2 36.5 47.9

91.7 78.1 81.3 83.7

82.3 73.0 51.0 68.8

a The Resolution Effect is the difference between acceptances in the Resolving and Nonresolving contexts.

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31.3, 15.3, and 23.0% for the Instructed, Self, and End conditions, respectively), but not for the Name Repetitions, as established by independent analyses of the Coreference Cue interaction for each kind of Coreference Cue. The effects for the adults were similar for both kinds of Coreference Cues. In addition, though the five-way interaction was not significant, inspection of the cell means, and analysis of the Detection Cue x Coreference Cue x Resolution Type interaction, F(4, 1080) = 4.49, indicates that the overall facilitation for instructions for both grades for the Definite Descriptions occurred primarily in the Adjacent condition. For example, the mean Resolution Effects in the Adjacent condition for the Definite Descriptions went from 63.6 and 50.0% in the End and Self Cue conditions, respectively, to 91.1% in the Instructed Cue condition for Direct information, and from 31.8% and 26.4% in the other conditions to 72.7% in the instructed Cue condition for the Indirect information. There were no other systematic differences for incongruency cue for the other separation/Definite Description conditions. These results have several implications. First, opportunities to detect incongruencies prior to the presentation of resolution information can affect the integration of incongruent and resolution information. These monitoring opportunities are characterized here as resulting in the generation of internal incongruency cues (cf. Brainerd, 1982). The finding indicates that resolution integration may be cue or need dependent to some extent and in turn implies that integration must be selective. The finding also suggests that incongruency recognition may drive resolution integration to some extent and in some situations. Second, directed uses of internal monitoring cues (Instructed Cue conditions) promote integration more efficiently than nondirected (Self Cue conditions) uses. Third, adults seem able to use or profit from these internal cues more than children. The results of several other studies (cf. Ackerman, 1984; Flavell, Speer, Green, & August, 1981; Markman, 1979; Markman & Gorin, 1981) also support this claim. In particular young children may only use cues efficiently when the use is directed. For young children, then, the evidence suggests generally that incongruency recognition was not causally related to incongruency resolution in Experiment 1. Children’s failures to use comprehension problem recognition as a cognitive cue may limit their ability to solve comprehension problems in a purposeful way. Finally, and in accord with the third implication, the use of internal cues may be limited by the total attentional complexity of a task for particular subjects. Internal cue use may consume attentional capacity, and thus may be limited by other storage and processing demands. This idea is supported by the findings that the detection instructions facilitated performance most strongly in the experiment in the Adjacent condition involving small storage complexity, especially for the children.

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The second comparison focused on theme continuity. The acceptances, summed across Direct and Indirect Resolution information, were analyzed by means of a 2 (Grade) x 3 (Incongruency Cue) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) x 2 (Theme Continuity) mixed analysis of variance, with the last factor within subjects. The major effects for incongruency cue were that, relative to the End Cue conditions, the Instructions increased the resolution acceptances for both the Backgrounded and the Foregrounded stories for the adults, but not for the children, as shown in Table 9, and by simple effects analysis of the Grade x Detection Cue x Theme Continuity interaction, F(2, 540) = 5.78, p < .Ol, MS, = .46. The third comparison focused on acceptances for the Congruent contexts. There were no effects in the comparison attributable for the Incongruency Cue manipulation. Memory

Question

Number correct was analyzed by means of a 2 (Grade) x 3 (Incongruency Cue) x 3 (Separation) x 2 (Coreference Cue) analysis of variance. There were no effects in the analysis associated with the Incongruency Cue variable. GENERAL

DISCUSSION

The results of these two experiments support the following empirical conclusions about the integration of information across sentences in resolving a problem for comprehension. First, the separation and content relations of the sentence information affects integration. As found also by other studies, integration occurs less successfully when target sentences are separated by other information (cf. Ackerman, 1982a, 1984; Glanzer et al., 1981), when the thematic information which links the sentences is in the Background (cf. Lesgold et al., 1979), when lexical or other bridging inferences are required to establish coreferential subject identity TABLE MEAN

PERCENTAGE

Grade Third Foregrounded Backgrounded College Foregrounded Backgrounded Mean Foregrounded Backgrounded

9

ACCEPTANCES FOR EACH KIND OF INCONGRUENCY

CUE AND CONTINUITY

End Cue

Self Cue

Instructed Cue

55.5 28.8

51.0 23.3

44.8 31.9

69.4 49.3

76.4 52.8

91.0 67.0

62.5 39.1

63.7 38.1

67.9 49.5

88

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(cf. Clark & Haviland, 1977; Irwin et al., 1982), and when the resolution information is only indirectly and inferentially related to the comprehension problem (cf. Ackerman, 1984). Second, in accord with the suggestions of other studies (cf. Ackerman, 1984; Brainerd, 1982; Daneman & Carpenter, 1980), information storage and processing complexity can be viewed as independent contributors to integration difficulty, and are empirically separable to some degree. Factors affecting processing, or the operations performed on lexical information, may interact, as may factors affecting information retention, or activation, in that adding complexity increments may disproportionately impair integration. However, storage and processing factors may not interact, at least until a performance floor is reached. The floor may reflect capacity limitations. Third, for adults, at least, internal monitoring opportunities or cues may facilitate information integration and a directed or selective use of internal cues is more efficient than a nondirected use. Fourth, in accord with the third point, resolution integration may be cue or need dependent to some extent. In addition to the use of internal detection cues, integrative processing may depend on cues that link related sentences, like thematic cues that keep propositional information active in working memory, and coreference cues that establish subject identity between sentences. The important developmental conclusions are these. First, even 6year-old children can integrate information across sentences and resolve problems for comprehension in situations that ensure sentence information is available, and active in working memory, and the inferential demands of relating or fitting problem and resolution information are minimal. However, second, children’s integration performance is likely to be severely impaired by increments in storage or inferential processing complexity, and usually more impaired than is adult performance. Six- and sevenyear-olds, in particular, may not integrate sentence information at all when coreferential identity is not explicitly established, there is a small separation between sentences, or when the theme is in the Background. In the sense that these children do not reinstate Backgrounded themes, or frequently make bridging inferences, integration is more cue dependent for these children than for adults. Adults may generate their own cues. Third graders seem to be more active processors than first graders in that third graders can tolerate situations that increase integration complexity to some small extent. For example, third graders can tolerate a small sentence separation, apparently retain or reinstate theme concepts when in the Background, and can relate sentences that require bridging inferences or inferences to ensure propositional relevance. Third, the efficient causal use of internal monitoring cues for information integration appears to increase with age. In contrast to adults, third graders may not use these cues efficiently unless instructed how to do

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so, and younger children may not use the cues at all (cf. Ackerman, 1984). In addition, efficient use of these cues for integration may depend on other factors that affect sentence availability and accessibility. For example, the finding that the third graders’ use of the Instructed Cues declined with sentence separations (see Table 8), may partially explain why other studies have found third graders to be relatively insensitive to monitoring instructions (cf. Markman, 1979; Markman & Gorin, 1981). Two important theoretical issues remain. Discussion of these issues here is based on the assumptions that the factors affecting integration in these experiments represent continuous dimensions of complexity, that integration consumes attentional or working memory capacity (cf. B&ton, Holdridge, Curry, & Westbrook, 1979), and that any increments to integration complexity also consume capacity. For example, establishing subject identity across constituents may require more or less attentional effort (cf. Bock, 1982) ranging from situations in which names are repeated to anaphoric situations, to situations requiring easy or difficult bridging inferences, etc. The first issue concerns conceptualization of the integration process. Integration in the present study is used as a cover term for the entire process of comparing, operating on, and combining information across sentence boundaries. Although the data permit only a speculative account at this point, a couple of points can be made: The data suggest that the process has certain sequential characteristics, and these sequences exhibit dependency relations. Two determinants of integration success may be identified tentatively. First, storage seems to constrain processing. That is, inferential or other processing of propositional information in the service of the integration may not occur unless the information in sentences is available to be processed and active in working memory. The constraint can be seen in that the most complex storage conditions dramatically affected resolution integration for even the easiest processing conditions, in many cases reducing performance to chance levels. However, resolution integration usually remained strong in the Adjacent condition for Foregrounded stories even for the complex processing conditions. Second, propositional storage and processing may be cue dependent. Although, as Foss (1982) suggests, inferential processing and consistency (i.e., congruency) monitoring may be constants in adult discourse comprehension, the integrative processing of discourse information may be varied and selective, and dependent on both appropriate internal monitoring cues and textual cues that link related sentence propositions. The second theoretical issue concerns the reasons children are more affected by integration complexity than are adults. There are several possibilities. One possibility is that children diier from adults in evaluating the relatedness of propositions that are candidates for integration (i.e., incongruent and resolution information). This kind of world knowledge

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deficit was found to contribute to children’s resolution deficiency in Ackerman (1984), and is likely to contribute to problem resolution difficulties in other kinds of problem situations. However, in the present study, this explanation cannot account for the developmental invariance in resolution performance in the situations of the least integration complexity for Direct Resolving information nor for the systematic changes in resolution performance with increments in integration complexity. Three other kinds of developmental deficits seem to contribute more substantially to the integration patterns. The first is that working memory capacity differences constrain integration performance. Assuming that integration complexity increments consume capacity, developmental increases in capacity will result in increases in integration. Evidence for developmental increase in working memory capacity and the relation of these increases to constraints on cognitive performances have been amply documented by Brainerd (1982) and others (cf. Case, Kurland, & Goldberg, 1982). In addition, Ackerman (1984) found significant correlations in children and adults between measured capacity and resolution performance. A second, related, source of deficit concerns familiarity with the linguistic features of text or discourse, like coreference cues, given-new relations, and thematic foregrounding, that facilitate information integration between sentences. A relative lack of familiarity with nonexplicit linking devices may encourage children to treat sentence propositions as unrelated ideas. The lack of familiarity may encourage, then, line-by-line (cf. Markman, 1979) instead of integrated processing. This source of deficit is related to the working memory source in that knowledge of linking devices may facilitate strategic or more efficient use of existing memory capacity. Finally, a third source of deficit is that adults seem to be more active processors of information than are children, in that adults seem more likely both to operationally transform information in sentences in search of propositional similarity and to strategically or selectively process information in response to internal cues. This source is also related to the first two sources in that active processing and the use of internal cues may increase functional capacity, but may also compete for and consume capacity. Limitations in capacity then may constrain the use of monitoring and other active storage and inferential processes. REFERENCES Ackerman, B. P. (1978). Children’s comprehension of presupposed information: Logical and pragmatic inferences to the speaker’s belief. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 26, 92-l 14. Ackerman, B. P. (1979). Children’s understanding of definite descriptions: Pragmatic inferences to the speaker’s intent. Journat of Experimenfuf Child Psychology, 28, l-15. Ackerman, B. P. (1982a). Contextual integration and utterance interpretation: The ability of children and adults to interpret sarcastic utterances. Child Development, 53, 10751083.

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Flavell, J. H., Speer, J. R., Green, F. L., & August, D. L. (1981). The development of comprehension monitoring and knowledge about communication. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 46, (5, Serial No. 192). Foss, D. J. (1982). A discourse on semantic priming. Cognitive Psychology, 14, 590-607. Garrod, S., C Sanford, T. (1981). Bridging inferences and the extended domain of reference. In J. Long & A. Baddeley (Eds.), Attention and performance, IX. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Glanzer, M., Dorfman, D., & Kaplan, B. (1981). Short-term storage in the processing of text. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 20, 656-670. Irwin, D. E., Bock, J. K., & Stanovich, K. E. (1982). Effects of information structure cues on visual word processing. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 21, 307-325. Just, M. A., & Carpenter, P. A. (1980). A theory of reading: From eye fixations to comprehension. Psychological Review, 87, 329-354. Kintsch, W., & van Dijk, T. A. (1978). Toward a model of text comprehension and production Psychological Review, 85, 363-394. Lesgold, A. M., Roth, S. F., & Curtis, M. E. (1979). Foregrounding effects in discourse comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 18, 291-308. Markman, E. M. (1979). Realizing that you don’t understand: Elementary school children’s awareness of inconsistencies. Child Development, 50, 643-655.

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Markman, E. M., & Gorin, L. (1981). Children’s ability to adjust their standards for evaluating comprehension. Journal of Educational Psychology, 73, 320-325. Paris, S. G. (1978). Coordination of means and goals in the development of mnemonic skills. In P. A. Omstein (Ed.), Memory development in children. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Pratt, M. W., Luszcz, M. A., MacKenzie-Keating, S., & Manning, A. (1982). Thinking about stories: The story schemata in metacognition. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal

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Yekovich, F. R., & Walker, C. H. (1978). Identifying and using referents in sentence comprehension. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 17, 265-278. RECEIVED:

March

1,

1983;

REVISED:

December 2, 1983.