Maintaining global coherence during reading.

Previous research demonstrated a contradiction effect: although text currently being processed was locally coherent, readers were aware of inconsistencies between a protagonist's actions and characteristics of the protagonists that were described earlier in the text and subsequently backgrounded. In the present experiments, not only the critical characteristics but also the protagonist were backgrounded. When the protagonist was reintroduced into the narrative in the context of carrying out an inconsistent action, the contradiction effect again occurred. In experiments 1-3, we examined the effects of several variables on the onset of the effect. In Experiment 4, we presented probes at various points in the passage with results tha supported he conclusion that the critical characteristics had been backgrounded before the sentence that contradicted them