| Article ID | Journal | Published Year | Pages | File Type |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 352723 | Contemporary Educational Psychology | 2011 | 9 Pages |
Three questions regarding adult readers’ processing of generalization inferences (conceptually broad statements that subsume several specific statements) are investigated. College students (N = 193) read expository texts containing target statements that were consistent, inconsistent, or off-topic in relation to a generalization implied by one paragraph. Reading times were faster for consistent than inconsistent statements and faster for inconsistent than off-topic statements, indicating adult readers construct generalization inferences online during initial reading of a text and that the inference they construct is relatively narrow in scope. This pattern of faster reading time for consistent sentences occurred under different reading goals, suggesting generalization inferences are a pervasive component of expository text comprehension.
► Readers construct broad generalization inferences to subsume subordinate statements. ► The generalizations inferred are specific and narrow in scope. ► The generalizations are inferred under a variety of reading goals.
