The effect of sentence context on ongoing word recognition: Tests of a two-process theory.

Examined M. I. Posner and C. R. R. Snyder's (1975) 2-process theory of expectancy that provides an explanation of the effect of sentence context on ongoing word recognition and that accounts for some recent results on the effect of sentence context on the word recognition times of children differing in reading fluency. Three studies with 98 undergraduates were conducted to test the applicability of the theory to the performance of fluent adult readers. Exp I tested and falsified an alternative explanation of previous results. Exps II and III established and replicated the finding that difficult (but less predictable) words displayed larger context effects than did easy words that were more predictable from the preceding sentence context. It is concluded that while this finding cannot be explained by many recent models of contextual effects on ongoing word recognition, it can be reasonably well accounted for by the Posner-Snyder theory. (43 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2006 APA, all rights reserved)