Perspective effects during reading: evidence from text change-detection

Bohan, Jason; Filik, Ruth

Abstract

We report two text change-detection studies in which we investigate the influence of reading perspective on text memory. In Experiment 1, participants read from the perspective of one of two characters in a series of short stories, and word changes were either semantically close or distant. Participants correctly reported more changes to perspective-relevant than -irrelevant words, and for distant than close changes. However, distance and perspective did not interact, suggesting that adopting a particular perspective did not lead to a more fine-grained analysis of perspective-relevant information. In Experiment 2, participants read one long narrative from the perspective of either a burglar or house-buyer. Results showed that only participants with a low working memory span showed perspective effects, suggesting that individual differences in working memory capacity appear to influence processing of perspective-relevant information.

Citation

Bohan, J., & Filik, R. (in press). Perspective effects during reading: evidence from text change-detection. Discourse Processes, 55(2), https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1330020

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jan 5, 2017
• Online Publication Date: Jun 23, 2017
• Deposit Date: Mar 15, 2017
• Publicly Available Date: Dec 24, 2018
• Journal: Discourse Processes
• Print ISSN: 0163-853X
• Electronic ISSN: 1532-6950
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 55
• Issue: 2
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1330020
• Keywords: Language comprehension, reading, perspective, text change-detection
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/867479
• Publisher URL: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1330020
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Discourse Processes on 23 June 2017 available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/0163853X.2017.1330020