Deck 10: Reading and Comprehending Text

Question 1

Rayner,White,Johnson,and Liversedge (2006)examined fixation times for words that were normal or jumbled.They found that

A)words with the internal letters transposed had the longest fixation times.
B)words with the initial letter transposed had the longest fixation times.
C)fixation times for normal words and for words with ending letters transposed were the same.
D)there was no difference between words with internal,ending,or beginning letters transposed.

Answer 1

words with the initial letter transposed had the longest fixation times.

Question 2

The "neural signature" of dyslexia seems to be impaired processing in the brain's

A)frontal-temporal regions.
B)occipito-temporal regions.
C)frontal lobe.
D)parietal lobe.

Answer 2

occipito-temporal regions.

Question 3

Regressive saccades

A)only occur in poor readers.
B)constitute about half of all saccades.
C)are symptomatic of reading difficulties,but aren't the cause.
D)have the same characteristics in good and poor readers;poor readers just have more of them.

Answer 3

are symptomatic of reading difficulties,but aren't the cause.

Question 4

High-frequency words like "robin" receive _____ fixation as low-frequency words like "penguin."

A)the same amount of
B)more
C)less
D)twice as much

Question 5

A word like "power" is called a ______ word,and the likelihood we would fixate on it during reading is about

A)content;40%.
B)content;80%.
C)function;40%.
D)function;80%.

Question 6

Word fixations typically last around

A)2 seconds.
B)1 second.
C)¾ second.
D)¼ second.

Question 7

Dyslexics have particular trouble

A)reading words in the correct order.
B)recognizing words when they hear them.
C)mapping the look of a word onto its sound.
D)performing normally on standard measures of intelligence.

Question 8

Bai,Yan,Zang,Liversedge,and Rayner (2008)investigated word/character recognition in written Chinese.Their major question was whether characters or words would prove to be the fundamental unit of processing in reading Chinese.Their results indicated that

A)spacing out the characters more than usual enhanced performance.
B)word spacing led to better reading performance than the spacing typically used in written Chinese.
C)word spacing led to poorer performance than the spacing typically used in written Chinese.
D)word spacing led to equal performance,relative to the spacing typically used in written Chinese.

Question 9

Word-skipping data indicate that

A)low-frequency words are more likely to be skipped than are high-frequency words.
B)word length is the best predictor of whether or not a word will be skipped.
C)highly constrained words are less likely to be skipped.
D)content words are more likely to be skipped than are function words.

Question 10

What is parsing?

A)The process of accessing word meaning
B)The process of converting syntax into semantics
C)The process of identifying the component elements of a sentence
D)The process of mapping the look of a word onto the sound of a word

Question 11

A word like "the" is called a ______ word,and the likelihood we would fixate on it during reading is about

A)content;40%.
B)content;80%.
C)function;40%.
D)function;80%.

Question 12

The importance of indirect access in word recognition would seem to imply that the best approach to teaching children to read is the ________ approach.Research evidence

A)phonics;fails to support this.
B)phonics;supports this.
C)whole-word;fails to support this.
D)whole-word;supports this.

Question 13

Which of these describes the bottom-up processes in reading?

A)Reading is aided by expectations.
B)Reading is aided by context.
C)Reading is aided by other words.
D)Reading requires analysis of the printed symbols.

Question 14

Perceptual span (for English)is about ________ characters to the left and ________ characters to the right.

A)3;15
B)6;10
C)15;3
D)10;6

Question 15

Luo,Johnson,and Gallo (1998)tested whether "pseudohomophones" (e.g. ,"brane")would show effects of semantic relatedness.In other words,would the letter string "brane" prime a related concept (e.g. ,neuron)? They found that

A)access to the mental lexicon was most probably direct.
B)pseudohomophones primed only the actual word (e.g. ,"brain," in this example).
C)pseudohomophones did not prime related concepts.
D)pseudohomophones did prime related concepts.

Question 16

A study by Van Orden (1987)had participants perform a category verification task.Participants were presented with a category name a word with orthography similar to a category member,like robs.Participants tended to miscategorize items from ________ most frequently,supporting the ________ access view of word recognition.

A)condition one;direct
B)condition three;direct
C)condition two;indirect
D)condition three;indirect

Question 17

Perea,Acha,and Carreiras (2009)investigated the reading comprehension of text messages and found that

A)orthographically based text messages were comprehended just as effectively as normal text.
B)phonetically based text messages were comprehended just as effectively as normal text.
C)both orthographically and phonetically based text messages were comprehended just as effectively as normal text.
D)neither orthographically nor phonetically based text messages were comprehended just as effectively as normal text.

Question 18

Saccades are to fixations as ________ is to

A)long;short.
B)reading;listening.
C)non-informational;informational.
D)start;stop.

Question 19

All of the following statements are true of dyslexia except

A)it's typically something a child outgrows.
B)it's characterized by poor spelling.
C)it's a problem mapping orthography to the sounds of words.
D)it's characterized by a lack of phonological awareness.

Question 20

All of the following are functions of the blank spaces between words except

A)they allow the reader a split second to rest.
B)they help indicate the length of upcoming words.
C)they provide information about the length of words currently being read.
D)they make words physically easier to see.

Question 21

________ pioneering research on memory was also critical to research on text memory and comprehension.

A)Ebbinghaus's
B)Bartlett's
C)Loftus's
D)Tulving's

Question 22

"Greg had such a bad night out at the bar that he decided to buy a new cue stick." The inference that Greg had a bad night because he shot billiards poorly is a ________.This inferred fact ________ represented as prominently as if it had actually been presented.

A)a bridging inference;would not be
B)an elaborative inference;would not be
C)a bridging inference;would be
D)an elaborative inference;would be

Question 23

Pickering and Traxler (1998)gave some participants garden-path sentences in which both interpretations made sense (e.g. ,As the woman edited the magazine amused all the reporters)and gave other participants garden-path sentences in which only one interpretation really made sense (e.g. ,As the woman sailed the magazine amused all the reporters).What did their results indicate?

A)They showed stronger garden-path effects for plausible sentences.
B)They showed stronger garden-path effects for implausible sentences.
C)They showed equal-sized garden-path effects for plausible and implausible sentences.
D)They failed to replicate the comprehension difficulties of garden-path sentences.

Question 24

"Jim thought his golf game was pretty bad,so he decided to get some new clubs." In this sentence,the word "he" is a(n)

A)inference.
B)antecedent.
C)anaphor.
D)text base.

Question 25

Which of these is a garden-path sentence?

A)They are cooking rocks.
B)The horse raced past the barn fell.
C)John went to the grocery store and bought a car.
D)Susan walked up the garden path.

Question 26

Although we do retain the gist of a sentence better than its verbatim form,Ferreira,Bock,Wilson,and Cohen (2008)found that participants had ______ memory for the _____ previously presented sentences.

A)implicit;words in
B)implicit;syntax of
C)explicit;words in
D)explicit;syntax of

Question 27

In her classic study of gist and verbatim memory(using a passage about Galileo,Sachs (1967)found that

A)gist and verbatim memory decline at about the same rate.
B)over any given delay,gist memory declines more than verbatim memory.
C)over any given delay,verbatim memory declines more than gist memory.
D)at no point in time-even after initial presentation-could participants reliably recognize a sentence verbatim.

Question 28

Ditman,Brunyé,Mahoney,and Taylor (2009)investigated the role of embodiment in text comprehension by varying the pronoun used to describe a three-sentence piece of discourse that described an activity.Comprehension was best when the pronoun subjects were reading was

A)"me."
B)"you."
C)"they."
D)"she."

Question 29

This structure-building process involves using world knowledge and linguistic knowledge to relate new information to information that's already been encoded.

A)Laying a foundation
B)Mapping
C)Shifting
D)Suppression

Question 30

The story grammar approach basically applies which notion from sentence comprehension to the comprehension of stories and larger units of discourse?

A)Case grammar
B)Parsing
C)Morphology
D)Constraint-based grammar

Question 31

When it comes to making inferences,the constructivist view is to the minimalist view as ________ is to

A)automatic;strategic.
B)less;more.
C)attention;working memory.
D)remote;immediate.

Question 32

The difficulty in processing garden-path sentences

A)confirms that the default structure in English syntax tends to be subject-object-verb.
B)is evidence against the garden-path approach.
C)is evident in reading times,but not in eye movements.
D)applies to blind readers of Braille.

Question 33

The concept of a ________ comes from Bartlett's classic research on story recall.

A)story grammar
B)proposition
C)script
D)schema

Question 34

In a classic study of how inferences are processed in text comprehension,Kintsch (1974)presented one group of participants with two sentences that explicitly stated some fact.Another group received two sentences that only implied that fact.Kintsch was interested in how readily participants inferred the fact in question,and whether this inference became part of the text representation.He tested this by asking participants to verify sentences that included the target fact,either immediately after reading or after a delay.His findings indicated

A)verification times were equally fast for implied and explicit facts,but only after a delay.
B)verification times were equally fast for implied and explicit facts immediately and after a delay.
C)verification times were faster for explicitly presented facts than for implied facts,but only after a delay.
D)verification times were faster for explicitly presented facts than for implied facts immediately and after a delay.

Question 35

Which of these is not one of the levels of discourse representation?

A)Situation model
B)Surface code
C)Text base
D)Analog code

Question 36

The garden-path approach assumes that we implicitly follow two assumptions in comprehending a sentence.One,called ________,means that we assume the syntax of a sentence is as simple as possible.The other,called ________,means we try to place the word currently being encountered into the phrase currently being constructed.

A)minimal attachment;late closure
B)late closure;minimal attachment
C)garden pathing;parsing
D)parsing;garden pathing

Question 37

Which of these is not an assumption of the construction-integration model of text comprehension?

A)We encode ideas from texts as propositions.
B)Ideas from a text,once encoded,are organized hierarchically.
C)We use working memory to construct the text representation.
D)The more propositions in a text,the more easily we comprehend it.

Question 38

Anaphors are more likely to result in the successful retrieval of an appropriate antecedent when

A)the antecedent has occurred recently.
B)the antecedent received first mention.
C)both factors mentioned in a and b are important.
D)neither factor mentioned in a and b are important.

Question 39

Global structure refers to ________,while local structure refers to

A)the degree of connection between individual ideas in a passage of prose;the general knowledge we bring to bear on what we're comprehending.
B)the general knowledge we bring to bear on what we're comprehending;the degree of connection between individual ideas in a passage of prose.
C)coherence;anaphoric reference.
D)anaphoric reference;coherence.

Question 40

Suppose a friend says,"I'm so nervous about that big test tomorrow." In this sentence,the given information is

A)that the speaker is nervous.
B)that there's a test tomorrow.
C)the fact that the test is going to be difficult.
D)the implicit assumption that you will take turns in the conversation.

Question 41

According to Gernsbacher's (1989)structure-building framework,encountering a phrase like "The next day..." would likely trigger the process known as

A)laying a foundation.
B)mapping.
C)shifting.
D)enhancement.

Question 42

What is not a reason for a blank space between words?

A)Increase fixations
B)Easier to see
C)Lengths of upcoming words
D)Indicate end of a word

Question 43

Consecutive fixations at the same spot are called

A)gazes.
B)fixtures.
C)function.
D)skipping.

Question 44

Ashby (2010)had participants silently read target words preceded by a prime.The priming was found to help prepare participants for the stimulus if the target was _______ congruent to the prime.

A)phonologically
B)fixed
C)semantically
D)indirectly

Question 45

Callender and McDaniel investigated the effect of embedding questions in text for both high- and low-structure builders.The test included items that had been the target of embedded questions,and other items that were related to concepts targeted by embedded questions.What did they find?

A)Embedded questions led low-structure builders to comprehend as well as high-structure builders.
B)Both high- and low-structure builders were aided by embedded questions.
C)Low-structure builders were helped by embedded questions,but only on the targeted concepts.
D)Low-structure builders were helped by embedded questions,for both targeted and related concepts.

Question 46

Which is an example of orthography?

A)Pls brg it next wk
B)CU L8er
C)LOL
D)Are you there

Question 47

The fact that you can read "recgonize" and "yellwo" demonstrates which concept?

A)Top-down processing
B)Bottom-up processing
C)Dual-systems view
D)Phonetic reading

Question 48

During saccades,our eyes take in very little visual information,known as saccade

A)suppression.
B)syntax.
C)fixture.
D)coding.

Question 49

Metacomprehension refers to our ______ and can be improved by

A)knowledge of how well we've comprehended text;rereading the text.
B)knowledge of how well we've comprehended text;performing a concurrent task while reading.
C)working memory capacity for text;rereading the text.
D)working memory capacity for text;our knowledge of how well we've comprehended text.

Question 50

Research on speed reading indicates that

A)training in speed reading leads to real gains in reading comprehension.
B)people who speed read seem to behave and comprehend like people who skim.
C)eliminating the "inner speech" that occurs during reading does enhance reading speed.
D)people who speed read never fixate;they only engage in saccades.