Abstract
Narratives typically consist of information on multiple aspects of a situation. In order to successfully create a coherent representation of the described situation, readers are required to monitor all these situational dimensions during reading. However, little is known about whether these dimensions differ in the ease with which they can be monitored. In the present study, we examined whether children in Grades 4 and 6 monitor four different dimensions (i.e., emotion, causation, time, and space) during reading, using a self-paced reading task containing inconsistencies. Furthermore, to explore what causes failure in inconsistency detection, we differentiated between monitoring processes related to availability and validation of information by manipulating the distance between two pieces of conflicting information. The results indicated that the monitoring processes varied as a function of dimension. Children were able to validate emotional and causal information when it was still active in working memory, but this was not the case for temporal and spatial information. When context and target information were more distant from each other, only emotionally charged information remained available for further monitoring processes. These findings show that the influence of different situational dimensions should be taken into account when studying children’s reading comprehension.
Highlights
To successfully comprehend a narrative, readers carefully monitor what is going on in a story along different situational dimensions (Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998)
We aimed to investigate processes related to availability and validation of information which are necessary for detecting an inconsistency, rather than more high-level strategic processes that are executed after detecting the inconsistency in order to restore comprehension
The present findings extend previous research in several ways. It shows that children do not seem to monitor all situational dimensions spontaneously as adults do: emotional and causal information are supposedly easier to monitor during reading than temporal and spatial information
Summary
To successfully comprehend a narrative, readers carefully monitor what is going on in a story along different situational dimensions (Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). A multidimensional mental representation, or situation model, of what the text is about is generated by active engagement in constructive and integrative processes during reading (Graesser, Singer, & Trabasso, 1994; Kintsch, 1988; van den Broek, Young, Tzeng, & Linderholm, 1999). We measured children’s monitoring skills with respect to different situational dimensions within the same paradigm. Within every situational dimension we differentiated between availability and validation of relevant text information, to investigate what causes comprehension difficulties. We sought to uncover whether comprehension monitoring difficulties might be related to problems constructing or reactivating material (i.e., availability) and/or problems detecting inconsistencies (i.e., validation)
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