The influence of contradicting implication on inference generation in discourse processing: a phantom recollection approach

Abstract

Many cognitive processes influence how we encode, store, and retrieve what we read. Two processes are considered to affect retrieval from memory: recollection and familiarity. Recollection is the explicit retrieval of the context; whereas familiarity is a vaguer feeling of remembering without knowing the exact context. Many factors influence how both recollection and familiarity function. In my M.A. thesis, participants read two-sentence passages, in which the second sentence either stated an action or implied it, and the first sentence either supported or contradicted the event of the second sentence. The participants received one of three types on instructions and made recognition judgments about test sentences in the context of the prior passages. Stating an action, and moreover making it distinct due to contradiction, would lead to more accurate recall of the same test sentence due to a high influence of recollection. Implying an action would result in inference generation of the stated action. This would indicate a high influence of familiarity on recognition judgments. A multinomial model was implemented in order to estimate the relative contributions of these distinct memory processes.