On the construction of representations for individuals from descriptions in text

Subjects read texts describing pairs of individuals sentence by sentence in a self-paced reading time task and then answered questions about the individuals and recalled them. The task is designed to explore how people represent the binding of attributes to individuals. The reading time data show that the construction of representations is organised around what is known about the currently referenced individual. The more that is known the more slowly subjects read. This slowing is not due to articulatory rehearsal. A regression model of reading times describes the partitioning of working memory resources across the semantic structures being processed. The construction processes yield redundant representations consisting of sets of feature values encoding aspects of the information in the text and contributing independently to memory performance. Modelling in terms of feature representations enables prediction of the patterns of error in recall. The reading time and recall error models are interpreted as showing how processes of recruiting associations occupy increasing time as more properties are known of an individual.