Profesorado

Prof. Dr. José Luis Berbeira Gardón

Situación

Prerrequisitos

Esta asignatura es semipresencial.Para cursarla, los alumnos han de
darse de
alta en el Aula
Virtual.

Contexto dentro de la titulación

Esta asignatura trata sobre la actividad lingüística y sobre el papel
del
lenguaje como instrumento cognitivo y sus relaciones en los procesos
mentales.
Constituye, así pues, la base psicológica para todas aquellas
asignaturas del
itinerario de lingüística que se centran, desde un punto de vista
cognitivo,
en el estudio del significado lingüístico y la comunicación verbal
(Semántica
y Pragmática, Pragmática de la lengua inglesa, etc.).

Recomendaciones

Esta asignatura se complementa con Semántica y Pragmática y con
Pragmática de
la Lengua Inglesa, por lo cual es interesante cursar, al mismo tiempo,
estas
dos asignaturas.

Competencias

Competencias transversales/genéricas

•  Capacidad de análisis y síntesis
•  Capacidad de aplicar los conocimientos en la práctica
•  Planificación y gestión del tiempo
•  Conocimientos generales básicos sobre el área de estudio
•  Conocimientos básicos de la profesión
•  Comunicación oral y escrita en la segunda lengua
•  Habilidades de investigación
•  Capacidad de aprender
•  Habilidades de gestión de la información
•  Capacidad crítica y autocrítica
•  Capacidad de adaptarse a nuevas situaciones
•  Capacidad para generar nuevas ideas (creatividad)
•  Resolución de problemas
•  Toma de decisión
•  Trabajo en equipo
•  Habilidades personales
•  Capacidad de trabajar en un equipo interdisciplinar
•  Capacidad para comunicarse con personas no expertas en la
materia
•  Apreciación de la diversidad y multiculturalidad
•  Habilidad para trabajar en un contexto internacional
•  Conocimiento de culturas y costumbres de otros países
•  Habilidad para trabajar de forma autónoma
•  Diseño y gestión de proyectos
•  Iniciativa y espíritu emprendedor
•  Preocupación por la calidad
•  Motivación de logros

Competencias específicas

• Cognitivas(Saber):

  •  Dominio instrumental de la segunda lengua
  •  Conocimiento de las técnicas comunicativas en el ámbito
  laboral, empresarial e institucional
  •  Conocimientos teóricos y metodológicos para el análisis e
  interpretación lingüística de textos
  •  Conocimiento de los mecanismos pragmáticos que interactúan
  en los actos de habla
  •  Conocimiento de la estructura cognitiva del lenguaje
  •  Conocimiento de los fundamentos teóricos del acto y de los
  sistemas de comunicación
  
  
  

• Procedimentales/Instrumentales(Saber hacer):

  •  Capacidad de asesoramiento lingüístico en el ámbito
  comercial, jurídico y técnico-profesional
  •  Capacidad de mediación lingüística desde el punto de vista
  intercultural, empresarial e interprofesional
  •  Dominio de las destrezas comunicativas en los ámbitos
  laboral, empresarial e institucional
  •  Capacidad de elaborar recensiones
  •  Capacidad para localizar, manejar y sintetizar información
  •  Capacidad de análisis de los procesos de comprensión y
  producción del lenguaje
  •  Capacidad para comunicar y enseñar los conocimientos
  adquiridos
  •  Capacidad para realizar análisis y comentarios lingüísticos
  
  

Objetivos

Esta asignatura trata sobre la actividad lingüística y sobre el papel del
lenguaje como instrumento cognitivo y sus relaciones en los procesos
mentales.
Los objetivos fundamentales son (1) que el alumno integre a su formación
académica y profesional aquellos elementos y conceptos teórico-
metodológicos
de la psicología que conciernen al papel del lenguaje como instrumento
cognitivo y regulador del comportamiento humano; (2) la aplicación de
tales
conocimientos al estudio de la lengua inglesa.

Programa

UNIT 1: Introduction to psycholinguistics.
UNIT 2: Language comprehension I: word recognition.
UNIT 3: Language comprehension II: comprehension of sentences and
discourse.
UNIT 4: Language comprehension III: comprehension of text and discourse.
UNIT 5: Language production I: word access in spoken language production.
UNIT 6: Language production II: generation of sentences in spoken language
production.
UNIT 7: Language production III: written language production.
UNIT 8: Language comprehension and language production: two different but
related processes.

Actividades

1. Lecciones magistrales en las que el profesor explicará los contenidos
básicos de cada tema (clases teórico-prácticas).
2. Comentario y debate en clase de las lecturas obligatorias (clases
práctico-
teóricas).
3. Actividades obligatorias en el Aula Virtual.

Metodología

Como se indica detalladamente en la programación por sesiones semanales de
la
asignatura, el concepto de crédito europeo computa las horas de trabajo
del
alumno, es decir, tanto aquéllas incluidas como sesiones académicas
programadas
en el horario oficial como las horas de preparación de las
correspondientes
actividades docentes.
En este sentido, se considera que corresponden 26/27 horas de trabajo al
crédito (40 semanas de curso X 40 horas de trabajo semanales = 1600 horas
por
curso académico, que, divididas entre los 60 créditos en los que el alumno
está
matriculado cada curso, dan un resultado de 26,6 horas de trabajo para
cada
crédito).
A esta asignatura cuatrimestral de 6 créditos le corresponden, por tanto,
160
horas de trabajo por parte del alumno, distribuidas en clases práctico-
teóricas,  tutorías especializadas y preparación de las distintas
actividades
programadas en la asignatura (lecturas obligatorias, preparación de guías
de
lecturas, actividades complementarias, exámenes, etc.).
En las sesiones académicas (clases práctico-teóricas (9 horas), teórico-
prácticas (10 horas) de tipo presencial se detallarán los contenidos
referidos
anteriormente en los
objetivos, estructurando su organización básicamente en los siguientes
bloques
temáticos:
1) Introducción a la psicolingüística.
2) Conceptos básicos.
3) La comprensión del lenguaje.
4) La producción del lenguaje
Las clases práctico-teóricas se llevarán a cabo de manera integrada, en
función
de los contenidos y necesidades didácticas. Éstas se desarrollarán en el
aula y
requerirán la asistencia y participación activa del alumno. En ellas se
comentarán, con la ayuda de las guías de lectura correspondientes, las
lecturas
obligatorias y el profesor irá revisando y ampliando los contenidos
oportunos.
Las tutorías especializadas (5 horas) consistirán, por una parte, en la
revisión de las guías de lectura elaboradas por los alumnos para el
comentario
de las lecturas obligatorias en clase y, por otra, en la aclaración de los
contenidos de las mismas. La carga de trabajo del alumno se completa con
136
horas de trabajo autónomo, en el que se incluyen el estudio personal (50
horas), la elaboración de actividades del Aula Virtual (50 horas), y la
preparación del examen teórico (36 horas).

Distribución de horas de trabajo del alumno/a

Nº de Horas (indicar total): 160

• Clases Teóricas: 9  
• Clases Prácticas: 10  
• Exposiciones y Seminarios:  
• Tutorías Especializadas (presenciales o virtuales):
  • Colectivas: 5  
  • Individules:  
• Realización de Actividades Académicas Dirigidas:
  • Con presencia del profesorado:  
  • Sin presencia del profesorado:  
• Otro Trabajo Personal Autónomo:
  • Horas de estudio: 50  
  • Preparación de Trabajo Personal: 36  
  • ...

    Actividades Aula
    Virtual: 50 horas

     
• Realización de Exámenes:
  • Examen escrito:  
  • Exámenes orales (control del Trabajo Personal):  

Técnicas Docentes

Actividades en el Aula Virtual.

Criterios y Sistemas de Evaluación

La evaluación de esta asignatura en las convocatorias de febrero, junio y
septiembre se basará en los siguientes criterios:

1) examen escrito en las fechas indicadas oficialmente en la guía de la
licenciatura. Esta prueba objetiva consistirá en unas preguntas de
carácter
teórico sobre la materia explicada en clase y las lecturas obligatorias, y
otras preguntas de carácter práctico basadas en la aplicación de las
diferentes
teorías semánticas y pragmáticas para la interpretación de enunciados.
Este
ejercicio, que servirá para evaluar el dominio conceptual y técnico de la
materia, tendrá un valor del 50% de la nota final, teniendo el alumno que
aprobar esta prueba para superar la asignatura;

2) Realización de las actividades obligatorias del Aula Virtual (35%);

3) valoración del trabajo continuo realizado por el alumno: su asistencia
y
participación activa en las clases práctico-teóricas, la realización de
ejercicios y trabajos de clase específicos, tanto presenciales como
virtuales,
así como los controles de las lecturas y recensiones correspondientes a
las
actividades no presenciales (15%).

CRITERIOS DE EVALUACIÓN Y CALIFICACIÓN
· Asistencia y participación en clase.
· Evaluación contínua de la preparación de las lecturas obligatorias.
· Actividades en el Aula Virtual.
· Examen teórico.

Recursos Bibliográficos

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY OF PSYCHOLINGUISTICS

1.  Basic references (required readings)

BEREITER, C. and SCARDAMALIA, M. (1987), The Psychology of Written
Composition.
Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum. Chapter 4 (“The role of production factors in
writing
ability”)
This book explores the notion that various writing strategies involve
different
kinds of thinking, which ultimately affect the written product. The first
part
presents concepts central to the writing process, including two models of
this
process, an integrative schema for studying it, and a discussion of the
transition from conversation to composition. The second section addresses
the
basic cognitive factors in composition, including the role of production
factors in writing ability, the information processing load of
composition, and
how children cope with the processing demands of coordinating ideas in
writing.
The third section presents perspectives on the composing strategies of
immature
writers, including knowledge telling and the problem of "inert knowledge,"
the
development of planning in writing, and links between composing and
comprehending strategies. The fourth section discusses factors involved in
promoting the development of mature composing strategies, including
fostering
(1) self-regulation; (2) evaluative, diagnostic, and remedial
capabilities; (3)
reflective processes; and (4) children's insight into their own cognitive
processes. The concluding section addresses the psychological and
educational
implications of "knowledge-telling" and knowledge-transforming
differences.
Required reading for Unit 7.

BOCK, K. and J. HUITEMA (1999), "Language production", in Sanford, S. and
M.
Pickering (eds.), Language Processing. Hove: Psychology Press.
In this chapter, Bock and Huitema discuss evidence from speech errors and
disfluencies that has traditionally formed the basis of models of
production.
They then discuss a model of language production that incorporates message-
level (roughly semantic), syntactic, and phonological processing. They use
this
model to illustrate recent experimental work on language production that
considers the time-course of processing in detail. Required reading for
Unit 6.

CROCKER, M. W. (1999), "Mechanisms for sentence processing", in Garrod, S.
and
M. Pickering (eds.), Language Processing. Hove: Psychology Press.
This article provides an account of the computational mechanisms that
underlie
syntactic processing. Crocker begins with a theoretical discussion about
the
relationship between grammars and parsers, and assumes that the parser
makes
use of grammatical knowledge in its operations; this is known as
the “competence hypothesis”. The chapter then considers various mechanisms
that
might be employed in the construction of syntactic analyses, and relates
these
to the problem of ambiguity in parsing. It then provides a computational
perspective on accounts of syntactic ambiguity resolution. Required
reading for
Unit 3.

FIELD, J. (2003), Psycholinguistics. A Resource Book for Students. London,
Routledge. Sections A1, B1, C1 and D1.
This book is a comprehensive introduction to psycholinguistic theory. It
covers
the core areas of the field: language as a human attribute, language and
the
brain, vocabulary storage and use, language and memory, comprehension and
production. It draws on a range of real texts, data and examples,
including a
Radio Four interview, an essay written by a deaf writer, and the
transcript of
a therapy session addressing stuttering. The required sections are
introductory
to psycholinguistics studies. Required reading for Unit 1.

GARROD, S. and M. PICKERING (eds.), Language Processing. Hover: Psychology
Press.
This volume presents pedagogical texts for university students of
psycholinguistics written by an international team of leading scientists.
It
gives an account of developments from the last decade both as they relate
to
experimental studies of processing and as they relate to computational
modelling of the processes. Most of the required readings for this course
are
chapters from this book.

GERNSBACHER, M. A. and J. A. FOERTSCH (1999), "Three models of discourse
comprehension", in Garrod, S. and M. Pickering (eds.), Language
Processing.
Hover: Psychology Press.
Gernsbacher and Foertsch begin with a general review of theories about the
integration of sentence interpretations into the broader discourse
representation. One of the key issues raised here is the extent to which
processing at these deeper levels is specific to language and the extent
to
which it reflects more general cognitive processes that are used in the
understanding of, for example, pictorial representations or films.
Gernsbacher
and Foertsch emphasize some of the general cognitive constraints that
apply to
higher level comprehension of language. In particular, they argue that the
processor makes use of principles that they call structure building,
conceptual
enhancemet, and suppression. Required reading for Unit 4.

MILLER, G. A. (1968), The Psychology of Communication: Seven Essays.
Hadmodsworth: Penguin. (“The psycholinguists”, pp. 74-86).
This text is a shortened version of an important article written in the
early
days of psycholinguistics. The issues it outlines are still very much the
concern of the field today. Among the points it makes, note the concept
of “levels of processing”. This assumes that readers and listeners achieve
understanding by taking language through a series of stages, starting with
perception and ending with evaluation. Required reading for Unit 1.

MOSS, H. E. and M. G. GASKELL (1999), “Lexical semantic processing during
speech recognition”, in Garrod, S. and M. Pickering (eds.), Language
Processing. Hove: Psychology Press.
This article concentrates on the special nature of words in relation to
speech
processing. In reading, a whole word may normally be processed as a result
of a
single eye fixation. This is not the case in listening: spoken words are
encountered as part of a transient speech stream with the component sounds
heard in a temporal sequence. So a central issue in understanding the
efficiency of spoken language comprehension is determining how processing
synchronizes with the temporal sequence in which the information occurs.
This
problem led to the formulation of what is called the cohort model of
spoken
word recognition. The basic idea is that all words consistent with the
pattern
of speech segments encountered so far are activated. Recognition only
occurs
when this cohort is reduced to one, and all other words have been
eliminated.
This account raises interesting questions about the time-course of
semantic
interpretation. In a truly modular system we would not normally expect to
find
evidence of activation of the meanings of all the words in the initial
cohort
(that is, all those words consistent with the first segment or two of the
speech pattern) before the word itself has been recognized. However, in an
interactive system that has access to higher levels of linguistic
representation, meaning (and context) may also be activated before the
word has
been recognized. In other words, one would expect not just the forms but
also
the meanings of the cohort models to be available during the course of
speech
comprehension. The evidence tends to support this interactive view,
according
to Moss and Gaskell. Required reading for Unit 2.

PICKERING, M. (1999), "Sentence comprehension", in Garrod, S. and M.
Pickering
(eds.), Language Processing. Hove: Psychology Press.
Pickering provides a general overview of sentence comprehension. He begins
by
discussing the clear evidence that sentence comprehension is generally
extremely incremental. In other words, both syntactic analysis and
associated
semantic interpretation normally take place as soon as every new word is
encountered. Pickering then considers the question of how the processor
chooses
which analysis to favour, and provides an overview of the sources of
information that appear to be relevant to this question. He then considers
current accounts of sentence processing in detail. The basic constrast is
between unrestricted accounts, in which all sources of information can be
used
immediately, and restricted accounts, in which initial parsing decision
are
based on some sources of information but not others. Pickering explores
the
distinction with reference to a number of different types of syntactic
ambiguity. Required reading for Unit 3.

TREIMAN, R., C. CLIFTON, Jr., A. S. MEYER and L.WURM (2003), “Language
comprehension and production”, in Heale, A. F. and R. W. Proctor (eds.),
Comprehensive Handbook of Psychology, Vol. 4: Experimental Psychology. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 527-548.
In this chapter, Treiman et al. describe current views of the
comprehension and
production of spoken and written language by fluent language users. Their
focus
in on core processes such as parsing and word retrieval. Required reading
for
Unit 8.


2. Additional readings

STEINBERG, D. D. (1993), An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. London:
Longman.
This book is a thorough introduction to psycholinguistics, which shows how
the
area relates to psychology, linguistics, philosophy and education. The
book is
divided into four parts. The first part focuses on acquisition, Part two
(“Language and mind”) on sentence processing, the relationship of language
to
thought and culture and the brain, as wellñ as whether language develops
from
intelligence or innate ideas. The final section draws on concepts and
findings
introduced in the other two sections and consider second language
acquisition
processes and teaching methods.

SWINNEY, D. A. (1979), “Lexical access during sentence comprehension: (Re)
consideration of context effects”. Journal of Verbal Learning & Verbal
Behavior
18 (6): 645-659
This is the original paper on the multiple and context-independent access
of
word meanings during sentence comprehension. In this paper, Swinney
carried out
two experiments with a total of 228 undergraduates and examined the
effects of
prior semantic context on lexical access during sentence comprehension. In
both
studies, subjects comprehended auditorily presented sentences containing
lexical ambiguities and simultaneously performed a lexical decision task
on
visually presented letter strings. Lexical decisions for visual words
related
to each of the meanings of the ambiguity were facilitated when these words
were
presented simultaneous with the end of the ambiguity (Exp I). This effect
held
even when a strong biasing context was present. When presented 4 syllables
following the ambiguity, only lexical decisions for visual words related
to the
contextually appropriate meaning of the ambiguity were facilitated (Exp
II).
Arguments are made for autonomy of the lexical access process, and a model
of
semantic context effects is offered.

KINTSCH, W. and E. F. MROSS (1985). Context effects in word
identification.
Journal of Memory and Language 24 (3): 336-349.
In this paper, Kintsch and Mross hypothesized that sense activation in
word
identification is affected by associative relationships among words, but
not by
the thematic context of a discourse. Exp I employed a cross-modal lexical
decision task. 347 undergraduate Subjects listened to a discourse
containing a
target word and made a word/nonword decision to a visually presented test
string. Results demonstrate that if the target word was a homograph, test
words
that were associates of the homograph were primed irrespective of the
thematic
context. Thematically appropriate test words that were not associatively
related to the target word were not primed. This result was confirmed in
Exp
II, where the text was presented visually at a rapid rate. In contrast,
when
Subjects were given enough time to process each word in Exp III, only
thematically appropriate associates were primed. No priming effects at all
were
obtained in Exp IV, which employed a rapid presentation rate where the
test
word was separated from the target word by two other interfering words. It
is
concluded that sense activation functions as a module independent of
thematic
context.

ONIFER, W., and D. SWINNEY (1981). “Accessing lexical ambiguities during
sentence comprehension: Effects of frequency of meaning and contextual
bias”.
Memory & Cognition 9 (3): 225-236.
This paper examines the exhaustive access and the terminating ordered
search
hypotheses of the nature of lexical access in 2 studies using a cross-
modal
lexical priming task. 104 undergraduates listened to sentences biased
toward
the primary interpretation (a meaning occurring 75% or more of the time)
or a
secondary interpretation (a meaning occurring less than 25% of the time)
of a
lexical ambiguity that occurred in each sentence. Simultaneously, Subjects
made
lexical decisions about visually presented words. Decisions were
facilitated
when presented immediately following occurrence of the ambiguity. However,
when
presented 1.5 sec following occurrence of the ambiguity, only visual words
related to the contextually relevant meaning of the ambiguity were
facilitated.
Results support the exhaustive access hypothesis. It is argued that
lexical
access is an autonomous subsystem of the sentence comprehension routine in
which all meanings of a word are momentarily accessed, regardless of the
factors of contextual bias or bias associated with frequency of use.

SEIDENBERG, M. S., M. K. TANENHAUS, J. M. LEIMAN, and M. BIENKOWSKI
(1982), “Automatic access of the meanings of ambiguous words in context:
Some
limitations of knowledge-based processing”. Cognitive Psychology 14 (4):
489-
537
188 undergraduates processed ambiguous words in sentences in 5
experiments. Two
classes of ambiguous words (noun-noun and noun-verb) and two types of
context
(priming and nonpriming) were investigated using a variable stimulus onset
asynchrony priming paradigm. Priming contexts contain a word highly
semantically or associatively related to one meaning of the ambiguous
word;
nonpriming contexts favor one meaning of the word through other types of
information (e.g., syntactic or pragmatic). In nonpriming contexts,
Subjects
consistently accessed multiple meanings of words and selected one reading
within 200 msec. Lexical priming differentially affected the processing of
subsequent noun-noun and noun-verb ambiguities, yielding selective access
of
meaning only in the former case. Results suggest that meaning access is an
automatic process that is unaffected by knowledge-based ("top down")
processing. Whether selective or multiple access of meaning is observed
largely
depends on the structure of the ambiguous word, not the nature of the
context.

VAN PETTEN, C. and M. KUTAS (1988), “Tracking the Time Course of Meaning
Activation”, in Lexical Ambiguity Resolution: Perspectives from
Psycholinguistics, Neuropsychology, and Artificial Intelligence. Edited by
Steven L. Small and Garrison W. Cottrell and Michael K. Tanenhaus. San
Mateo,
CA: Morgan Kaufmann.

VAN PETTER, C. and M. KUTAS (1987), “Ambiguous words in context: An event-
related potential analysis of the time course of meaning activation”.
Journal
of Memory & Language 26 (2): 188-208
Presented 75 Subjects (aged 18-25 yrs) with sentences using words with a
single
spelling and pronunciation but at least 2 distinct meanings (homographs)
terminating sentences of moderate contextual constraint. Target words were
(1)
related to the contextually biased meaning of the homograph, (2) related
to the
unbiased meaning, or (3) unrelated. The stimulus onset asynchrony (SOA)
between
homograph and target was short (200 msec) or long (700 msec). The naming
latencies in Exp I and the event-related potentials elicited in Exp II
showed a
similar pattern of priming at the long SOA. At the short SOA, the priming
effect had a later onset for contextually inappropriate than appropriate
targets, indicating that both meanings were not activated at the same
time.

VAN PETTEN, C. and M. KUTAS (1991), “Electrophysiological evidence for the
flexibility of lexical processing”, in Understanding Word and Sentence.
Series
Advances in Psychology 77. Edited by Greg B. Simpson. Amsterdam: North-
Holland.
129-174.
An interesting paper which addresses the question of "backward priming"
(i.e.
asks whether there may have been a flawed methodology in these earl
studies):

TANENHAUS, M. K., C. BURGESS and M. SEIDENBERG (1988), “Is Multiple Access
an
Artifact of Backward Priming?”, in Lexical Ambiguity Resolution:
Perspectives
from Psycholinguistics, Neuropsychology, and Artificial Intelligence.
Edited by
Steven L. Small and Garrison W. Cottrell and Michael K. Tanenhaus. San
Mateo,
CA: Morgan Kaufmann. 311--330.

A partial rebuttal:

JONES, J. L. (1989), “Multiple access of homonym meanings: An artifact of
backward priming?”, Journal of Psycholinguistic Research 18 (4): 417-432.
42 undergraduates participated in a color-naming task to determine whether
multiple homonym meanings are accessed independently of context. Subjects
heard
sentences ending in homonyms, then, either 0 or 200 msec later, saw target
words that were appropriately related, inappropriately related, or
unrelated to
the preceding homonym. Results support the prediction that color-naming
responses to both appropriate and inappropriate targets would be inhibited
relative to unrelated targets at the 0-msec interstimulus delay. Within
200
msec, inappropriate targets were no longer inhibited, indicating that
context
had acted to select the appropriate meaning. Because the color-naming task
eliminates backward priming, the multiple access effect obtained in this
study
cannot be an artifact of backward priming.

SIMPSON, G. B. (1994), “Context and the Processing of Ambiguous Words”, in
Handbook of Psycholinguistics. Edited by Morton Ann Gernsbacher. San
Diego, CA:
Academic Press. 359-374.
This paper provides an updated review of recent literature in (lexical)
ambiguity (the retrieval of meanings in multiple meaning words), some
discussion of methodological issues, and a perspective on the future of
the
area; argue that the box score approach (placing studies old and new into
an
appropriate column) to the modularity debate (on how ambiguous words were
processed) has outlived its usefulness, and that researchers in this area
need
to move beyond this basic question to discuss issues concerning the nature
of
context and a person's interaction with it, and how these may affect
processing... review some of the issues that were raised in the earlier
discussion of the literature; consider the bearing of recent research on
those
issues; discusses the nature of context and suggests that further progress
will
be possible only by viewing context more comprehensively than has
typically
been the case, considering not only local sentence context but also the
context
of the experimental situation itself.

McKOON, G. and R. RATCLIFF (1992),  “Inference during reading”,
Psychological
Review 99 (3): 440-466.
Most current theories of text processing assume a constructionist view of
inference processing. In this article, an alternative view is proposed,
labeled
the minimalist hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, the only
inferences
that are encoded automatically during reading are those that are based on
easily available information, either from explicit statements in the text
or
from general knowledge, and those that are required to make statements in
the
text locally coherent. The minimalist hypothesis is shown to be supported
by
previous research and by the results of several new experiments. It is
also
argued that automatically encoded minimalist inferences provide the basic
representation of textual information from which more goal-directed,
purposeful
inferences are constructed.

GRAESSER, A., K. K. MILLIS, and R.A. ZWAAN (1997), “Discourse
comprehension”,
Annual Review of Psychology 48: 163-189.
This paper discusses the meaning representations that are constructed when
adults read written text, such as literary stories, technical expository
text,
and experimenter-generated "textoids." Three phenomena that have been
extensively investigated by discourse psychologists are examined: the
processing of referring expressions, the connection of statements in text,
and
the encoding of knowledge-based inferences. Readers execute these
processes in
an effort to achieve coherence at local and global levels and to explain
why
information is mentioned in the text. These three phenomena are discussed
in
relation to multiple levels of discourse representation, psychological
mechanisms in theories of comprehension, referring expressions, and
knowledge-
based inferences.