9221940 MCKOON This research concerns reading and the ways information in memory can contribute to the inference processes that occur during reading. One source of information for inference processes is short-term memory for parts of a text that have already been read. This information should be available to allow, for example, inferences that decide the correct referent of a pronoun or inferences that relate via causality two events described by the text. Experiments will examine the local representation constructed for a text, testing the theoretical proposition that locally available information is structured by the linguistic, semantic, and pragmatic means by which the information is expressed. A second line of research will examine interactions between inference processes and well-known information from long-term memory, examining knowledge of the semantic structures of verbs, knowledge of what concepts are frequently associated with each other, and knowledge about how lexical items are used in various contexts. ***
