Temporal order relations in language comprehension.
The role of temporal orientation (chronological or reverse) and chronological distance (close, intermediate, or distant) in general event knowledge on language comprehension was examined. Experiment 1 used a relation-recognition paradigm in which the comprehension of a target event could be facilitated or disrupted by the temporal orientation implied by the prior information. Experiments 2 and 3 used a sentence-probe-recognition paradigm in which the temporal orientation, the stimulus onset asynchrony, and the chronological distance between the sentence event and the probe event were manipulated. The results demonstrated that readers used temporal information conveyed by their knowledge to construct situation models while comprehending sentences. The internal temporal dimension appeared to be directional and reflected the chronological distance between everyday events.
van der Meer
Elke
E
Department of Psychology, Humboldt University at Berlin, Germany. vdMeer@rz.huberlin.de
Beyer
Reinhard
R
Heinze
Bertram
B
Badel
Isolde
I
D000328:Adult; D001245:Association Learning; D003210:Concept Formation; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D011930:Reaction Time; D011932:Reading; D012691:Serial Learning; D013998:Time Perception