Abstract

ZUNINO, Gabriela Mariel. Understanding the unknown: expectations, semantic relations, and causality-by-default revisited. Leng. [online]. 2023, vol.51, n.1, pp.156-186.  Epub Jan 30, 2023. ISSN 0120-3479.  https://doi.org/10.25100/lenguaje.v51i1.11951.

The comprehension of texts is a complex phenomena that involves both language-specific and extra-linguistic information. The current study focuses on how the lack of prior world knowledge affects sentence comprehension and, specifically, whether this factor modulates the process depending on the type of semantic relationship: additive, temporal and causal within the sentence. Based on a sentence comprehension task under a self-paced reading paradigm, we review the Default Causality Hypothesis. Reading times and response accuracy to comprehension questions were recorded. The results show a main effect generated by the impossibility of involving prior world knowledge and interactions linked to the type of semantic relationship. A centrality of the temporal-causal axis is also exhibited for the comprehension of unknown information, although not all the predictions made by the Default Causality Hypothesis hold for these cases.

Keywords : psycholinguistics; sentence comprehension; semantic relations; causality; temporality; prior world knowledge.

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