The Impact of Semantic and Causal Relatedness and Reading Skill on Standards of Coherence

Abstract

Readers apply their own standards of coherence while reading text. Readers with a low standard of coherence are thought to find a sparse and incomplete representation more coherent than readers who employ a higher standard. This article reports 3 experiments that examined standards of coherence imposed by skilled and less-skilled readers by having them make a judgment of coherence (JOC) to sentence pairs that varied on semantic and causal relatedness. The JOC task required the participants to decide whether sentence pairs were coherent. The results indicated that both variables influenced JOC for both types of readers, but that semantic relatedness had a greater impact on less-skilled readers, whereas causal relatedness had a greater influence on the skilled readers. The results are discussed in the context of the construction–integration model of comprehension.