Date of Award
Summer 8-23-2015
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Psychology
First Advisor
Sandra Virtue, PhD
Second Advisor
Joseph Mikels, PhD
Abstract
This study investigates the effects of attentional control on the hemispheric processing of predictive inferences during reading. Participants read texts that were either strongly or weakly constrained towards a predictive inference and performed a lexical decision task to inference-related target words presented to the right or left visual field— hemisphere. Facilitation for strongly constrained predictive inferences was greater than facilitation for weakly constrained predictive inferences in both hemispheres. Readers with high attentional control showed significant facilitation for strongly constrained inferences in the both hemispheres, but only showed significant facilitation for weakly constrained inferences in the left hemisphere. Readers with low attentional control did not show significant facilitation in any of the conditions. These results suggest that readers with high attentional control may have an advantage for generating predictive inferences during reading, a skill which could contribute to improved situation model construction and comprehension compared to readers with low attentional control.
Recommended Citation
Shutzenhofer, Michael Christopher, "THE INFLUENCE OF ATTENTIONAL CONTROL ON HEMISPHERIC PROCESSING OF PREDICTIVE INFERENCES" (2015). College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations. 126.
https://via.library.depaul.edu/csh_etd/126
SLP Collection
no