COMPREHENSION OF SCIENCE TEXTS IN COLLEGE STUDENTS: GENERATION OF CAUSAL INFERENCES DURING READING

The generation of causal inferences-background was examined during and after the reading of expository texts with little unfamiliar scientific content in 52 university level students (M Age = 24.48, SD = 3.6), who read 24 short scientific texts. There were two activation measures during the reading (reading times and lexical decision) and a post-reading measure (answers to questions); in addition, the degree of familiarity of the material was controlled. The results suggest that causal inferences-background is generated when reading unfamiliar scientific material, but the degree of activation of the information required by inference depends on the distance of the parts of the text to be integrated.