The effects of causal cohesion on comprehension and memory

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Two experiments are reported in which sentence-by-sentence reading times were collected on two-sentence paragraphs, where the first sentence specified a cause for the event in the second sentence. Each paragraph had four versions. All versions had the same second sentence and were referentially coherent; they differed, however, in the causal relatedness of the two sentences. Despite referential coherence, reading times for second sentences were shown to steadily increase as causal relatedness decreased. Recognition and recall memory for the causes was poorest for the most and least related causes and best for causes of intermediate levels of relatedness.

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This research was supported by Grant NIE-G-78-0173 from the National Institute of Education to the first author and by a grant from the W. T. Grant Foundation to the University of Denver Psychology Department. Experiment 1 was first reported at the American Psychological Association convention in 1978.

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