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Journal of Language and Social Psychology
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Processing Person Descriptions

How Does Text Coherence Influence Encoding and Retrieval of Person Information?

Sabine Krolak-Schwerdt

University of Luxembourg, sabine.krolak{at}uni.lu

Nadine Junker

Saarland University

Rainer Roth

Saarland University

Margret Wintermantel

Saarland University

Two experiments investigate the processing of person descriptions that consist of a number of statements about the characteristics of a person. In one condition, each statement refers to a single person attribute and in the other condition, causal (e.g., because) and additive (e.g., and) conjunctions are introduced to verbally link the statements. In a free recall experiment, it is found that the introduction of verbal links enhances participants' memory for the presented information. A self-paced reading-time experiment shows that the comprehension of person information is significantly facilitated by the introduction of verbal links. Furthermore, the results are due to the introduction of causal conjunctions. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for social cognition research and social-psychological issues of language.

Key Words: person memory • text comprehension • causal conjunctions

This version was published on September 1, 2008

Journal of Language and Social Psychology, Vol. 27, No. 3, 235-253 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0261927X08318018
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