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Spatial Inferences in Narrative Comprehension: the Role of Verbal and Spatial Working Memory

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 March 2016

Natalia Irrazabal  and
Debora Burin
Natalia Irrazabal*
Affiliation:
Universidad de Palermo (Argentina)
Debora Burin
Affiliation:
Universidad de Buenos Aires (Argentina)
*
*Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Natalia Irrazabal. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas – CONICET - Facultad De Ciencias Sociales - Universidad De Palermo. Mario Bravo, 1259. Ciudad Autonoma de Buenos Aires. (Argentina). 1079. Phone +54114964.4600, +54114964.4600. E-mail: nirrazabal@psi.uba.ar
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Abstract

During the comprehension of narrative texts, readers keep a mental representation of the location of protagonists and objects; a breach in spatial coherence is detected by longer online reading times (consistency effect). We addressed whether these spatial inferences involve verbal or spatial working memory in two experiments, combining the consistency paradigm with selective verbal and spatial working memory concurrent tasks. The first experiment found longer reading times with a concurrent spatial task under imagery instructions (t33 = 2.87, p = .021). The second experiment, under comprehension reading instructions, found effects of verbal interference on reading times and accuracy. With a verbal secondary task, reading times for the target sentence were shorter (t45 = 3.60, p = .004) and the error rate was significantly higher (t47 = 2.95, p = .005) than without interference. This pattern of results suggests that spatial inferences in narrative comprehension rely mainly on verbal resources, and spatial working memory resources are recruited when imagery is required.

Keywords

spatial inferencesnarrative comprehensiondiscourse processingworking memory
Type
Research Article
Information
The Spanish Journal of Psychology , Volume 19 , 2016 , E11
Copyright
Copyright © Universidad Complutense de Madrid and Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos de Madrid 2016 

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