Inferences in Discourse, Psychology of

An inference is defined as the information that is not expressed explicitly by the text but is derived on the basis of the understander’s knowledge and is encoded in the mental representation of the text. Inferencing is considered as a central component in discourse understanding. Experimental methods to detect inferences, established findings, and some devel-opments are reviewed. Attention is paid to the relation between inference processes and the brain. When listeners or readers understand discourse, they under-standmuchmore than what is stated explicitly in the sentences. On the basis of their knowledge of the language and the world, they are able to understand what has been left implicit in the text but is intended to be communicated. Consider the following text (a): (a) There were municipal elections yesterday. Because the majority of the lower town voted for the local party, there was a shift toward the left in the city council. But the right-wing party was not completely disappointed. It had expected t