Storage and processing constraints on integrating story information in children and adults

Abstract

In two experiments, this study examined the effects of integration complexity on the ability of child and adult listeners to integrate information from different sentences in a story. First and third graders and college adults were read stories containing incongruent event information and succeeding resolution information that explained the incongruency, and asked questions that probed incongruency recognition and resolution. Information storage complexity was manipulated by separating the event and resolution information and foregrounding or backgrounding the focal story characters. Processing complexity was manipulated by varying the inferential complexity of relating the resolution to the incongruent information, and the coreferential cues linking the event and resolution information. The results showed that increases in complexity adversely affected resolution integration, and more for the children than for the adults. The children's integration performance, in particular, was affected by theme discontinuity and coreferential complexity.