Open AccessSequential Coherence in Sentence Pairs Enhances Imagery during Comprehension: An Individual Differences Study
Author(s) -
Carol Madden-Lombardi,
Anne-Lise Jouen,
Peter Ford Dominey,
Jocelyne Ventre-Dominey
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
plos one
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.99
H-Index - 332
ISSN - 1932-6203
DOI - 10.1371/journal.pone.0138269
Subject(s) - comprehension , coherence (philosophical gambling strategy) , sentence , mental image , reading comprehension , computer science , cognitive psychology , sequence (biology) , reading (process) , psychology , natural language processing , artificial intelligence , linguistics , cognition , mathematics , biology , genetics , neuroscience , statistics , philosophy , programming language
The present study investigates how sequential coherence in sentence pairs (events in sequence vs. unrelated events) affects the perceived ability to form a mental image of the sentences for both auditory and visual presentations. In addition, we investigated how the ease of event imagery affected online comprehension (word reading times) in the case of sequentially coherent and incoherent sentence pairs. Two groups of comprehenders were identified based on their self-reported ability to form vivid mental images of described events. Imageability ratings were higher and faster for pairs of sentences that described events in coherent sequences rather than non-sequential events, especially for high imagers. Furthermore, reading times on individual words suggested different comprehension patterns with respect to sequence coherence for the two groups of imagers, with high imagers activating richer mental images earlier than low imagers. The present results offer a novel link between research on imagery and discourse coherence, with specific contributions to our understanding of comprehension patterns for high and low imagers.