Inference and context: individual differences in interpretation and integration

Individual differences in interpretation of ambiguous fronted adjunct sentences were correlated with measures of cognitive ability and reading experience in two experiments. The initial ambiguity was either consistent with a plausible inference or not. Correct interpretation of the inconsistent sentences was found to be correlated with a number of different cognitive components. Responses following sentences for which the inference was consistent showed few correlations with any of the cognitive components measured. In the second experiment, prior context was either supportive of the inference or neutral; passages that required bridging inferences were also included for comparison. Again there were few correlations with response. However, there were correlations of reading times with RTs from the lateralized lexical decision task and with a measure of reading experience. Differences by visual field on the lexical task were found to correlate with RTs and accuracy on the task. Relationships between the measures and reading and response were explored using structural equation modeling