Directing and Re-Directing Inference Pursuit: Extra-Textual Influences on Text Interpretation

Abstract

Understanding a text depends on s reader's ability to construct a coherent interpretation that accounts for the statements in the text. However, a given text does not always imply a unique coherent interpretation. In particular, readers can be steered away from an otherwise plausible explanation for a story by such extra-textual factors as the source of the text, the reading purpose, interruptions during reading, or repeated re-questioning of the reader. Some of these effects have been observed in experiments in cognitive psychology (e.g., Black [1980]). This paper presents a computer program called MACARTHUR that can vary both the depth and direction of its inference pursuit in response to re-questioning, resulting in a series of markedly different interpretations of the same text.