Processing discourse roles in scripted narratives: The influences of context and world knowledge

Discourse context may affect comprehension of a word in a text by facilitating lexical access or by facilitating integration of the target concept with the preceding text. In two experiments, we used eye tracking measures to examine contextual influence on the integration of role fillers in scripted narratives. In both experiments, context had an early influence on integration of role fillers. However, measures of post-target processing indicated that semantic knowledge continued to influence integration. The results are discussed in terms of several theories of contextual influence on reading. The data appear to support a two-stage model of processing: in the first stage, incoming text is linked to the contents of active memory; in the second stage, the link between the new and old information is evaluated.

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