Murray Singer
Biographic Data
| ID | 5886711 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Murray Singer |
| GIVEN NAMES | Murray |
| FAMILY NAME | Singer |
| SIGNATURE | SINGER M |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Manitoba |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-7332-7923 |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 75 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 21 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1980 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Representing and remembering text paraphrases
The contributions of Walter Kintsch
Walter Kintsch's contributions profoundly impacted research on the comprehension of text and discourse and on interdisciplinary cognitive science. Each of his theoretical advances produced a cascade of theoretical and empirical investigations by his own team and many other investigators, which validated and refined those advances. That pattern is examined here with reference to his proposals concerning the propositional representation of text, th…
Challenges in Processes of Validation and Comprehension
There is accumulating evidence that readers continually evaluate the consistency, congruence, and coherence of text by processes of validation. Validation is initiated immediately on stimulus presentation, may proceed nonstrategically, and serves as a criterion for representational updating. However, validation exhibits a variety of deficiencies. Readers tend to overlook presupposed anomalies and are prone to both endorse text misinformation and …
Phantom Recollection of Bridging and Elaborative Inferences
The phantom recollection model is a multiprocess analysis according to which memory judgments are collaboratively supported by one's recollection of an item in its context, a vaguer sense of stimulus familiarity, and the phantom recollection of the substance and even perceptual details of unstudied but related lures. Phantom recollection has previously been documented to support readers’ judgments of certain logical implications of sentences and …
Exploring Individual Differences in Language Validation
Understanders appear to routinely and immediately evaluate the congruence of discourse at many levels of analysis, processes often labeled "validation." This study was an initial exploration of individual differences in discourse validation. Text reading-time profiles were examined as a function of two negligibly correlated reader qualities: first, their working memory resources (indexed by reading span), and second, their accessing of relevant a…
Processes of Discourse Integration
We used ERP methodology to investigate how readers validate discourse concepts and update situation models when those concepts followed factive (e.g., knew) and nonfactive (e.g., guessed) verbs, and also when they were true, false, or indeterminate with reference to previous discourse. Following factive verbs, early (P2) and later brain components (N400 and late frontal positivity) revealed that relative to true concepts, both false and indetermi…
Profiles of Discourse Recognition
A discourse recognition theory derived from more general memory formulations would be broad in its psychological implications. This study compared discourse recognition with some established profiles of item recognition. Participants read 10 stories either once or twice each. They then rated their confidence in recognizing explicit, paraphrased, inference, and false (lure) probes. False alarms were higher for unrepeated than for repeated stories,…
Representing Complex Narrative Goal Structures
Representing Complex Narrative Goal Structures
This study assessed the relative contribution of situational and memory-based influences to the reader's monitoring of complex narrative goal structures. In 2 experiments, people read stories according to which 2 collaborative subgoals had to succeed for a main goal to be achieved. At a story target region describing an attempt on the main goal, the reader had to make a recognition decision about a probe word representing a manipulated subgoal. E…
Inference Processes
There is considerable evidence that readers derive a representation of the situation to which text refers, and that causal relations form an important element of the situation model. Singer and Halldorson (1996) previously showed that, after the reading of the causal sequence, "Dorothy poured the bucket of water on the bonfire, The fire went out," the causal outcome primes the relevant world knowledge that water extinguishes fire. Two new experim…
Representation of Complex Goal Structures in Narrative Comprehension
This study inspected people's sensitivity to complex narrative goal structures. The stories described 2 characters' attempts to accomplish independent subgoals to achieve a joint main goal. In most conditions, the success of the first subgoal was manipulated. The next subgoal always succeeded, and a subsequent target region described the second character attempting to execute the main goal. The target region made no reference to the text ideas of…
Text Retrieval
An analysis of text retrieval is advanced, which couples the comprehension principles of construction-integration (Kintsch, 1988, 1998) with the global-match assumptions of contemporary memory theory. The analysis had three components: First, following the tenets of construction-integration, comprehension yields a multilevel (surface, propositional, and situation model) long-term memory representation of the text. Second, the familiarity of a mem…
Constructing inferences in expository text comprehension
Prior studies have suggested that causal bridging inferences are constructed during the comprehension of narrative text (Singer, Halldorson, Lear, & Andrusiak, 1992) but not expository text (Noordman, Vonk, & Kempff, 1992). Experiment 1 revealed that results consistent with both of these conclusions can be measured simultaneously. In Experiments 2 to 4, subjects read expository texts only, and, after each one, answered a question that probed the …
Reading and Language Processing
Comprehending consistent and inconsistent causal text sequences
A construction‐integration analysis of the comprehension of causal text sequences was performed. According to the validation analysis, the comprehension of both consistent and inconsistent causal sequences requires that tentative bridging inferences be validated with reference to relevant knowledge. Consistent with this proposal, Singer (1993) reported that people needed less time to answer questions about the hypothesized validating facts after …
Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension.
The authors describe a constructionist theory that accounts for the knowledge-based inferences that are constructed when readers comprehend narrative text. Readers potentially generate a rich variety of inferences when they construct a referential situation model of what the text is about. The proposed constructionist theory specifies that some, but not all, of this information is constructed under most conditions of comprehension. The distinctiv…
Discourse Representation and Text Processing
Global inferences of text situations
Three views of causal inference state that readers infer causal connections (a) only among nearby text ideas, (b) among distant ideas if the text is locally incoherent, and (c) among distant ideas even if the text is locally coherent. These hypotheses are evaluated with reference to the data of the six empirical articles in this special issue on inference
Psychology of Language
Preface 1 Introduction 2 Language and meaning: representing and remembering discourse 3 Syntax and parsing processes 4 The role of knowledge in language comprehension 5 Understanding coherent discourse 6 Theme 7 Inference processes 8 Understanding stories 9 Question answering and sentence verification 10 Natural language understanding by computers - and people References Author index Subject index Acknowledgments
Answering questions about discourse
The goal of this article is to provide an overview of recent advances in the study of the psychology of question answering. Investigators have identified numerous stages of question processing including question encoding, question categorization, selection of an answering strategy, memory search, comparison, and response. Understanders may adopt the strategy of directly retrieving a questioned fact or of judging its plausibility on the basis of g…
The role of case‐filling inferences in the coherence of brief passages∗
Three experiments were conducted to determine whether inferences which function so as to preserve the coherence of a passage are drawn in the course of comprehension. The study focused upon the implications of verbs and verb phrases concerning the concepts that fill the related agent, patient, and instrument cases. In all three experiments, judgments about the “necessary” inferences were compared with those about directly expressed ideas and abou…
The role of case‐filling inferences in the coherence of brief passages∗
Three experiments were conducted to determine whether inferences which function so as to preserve the coherence of a passage are drawn in the course of comprehension. The study focused upon the implications of verbs and verb phrases concerning the concepts that fill the related agent, patient, and instrument cases. In all three experiments, judgments about the “necessary” inferences were compared with those about directly expressed ideas and abou…
Text Retrieval
An analysis of text retrieval is advanced, which couples the comprehension principles of construction-integration (Kintsch, 1988, 1998) with the global-match assumptions of contemporary memory theory. The analysis had three components: First, following the tenets of construction-integration, comprehension yields a multilevel (surface, propositional, and situation model) long-term memory representation of the text. Second, the familiarity of a mem…
Challenges in Processes of Validation and Comprehension
There is accumulating evidence that readers continually evaluate the consistency, congruence, and coherence of text by processes of validation. Validation is initiated immediately on stimulus presentation, may proceed nonstrategically, and serves as a criterion for representational updating. However, validation exhibits a variety of deficiencies. Readers tend to overlook presupposed anomalies and are prone to both endorse text misinformation and …
Constructing inferences in expository text comprehension
Prior studies have suggested that causal bridging inferences are constructed during the comprehension of narrative text (Singer, Halldorson, Lear, & Andrusiak, 1992) but not expository text (Noordman, Vonk, & Kempff, 1992). Experiment 1 revealed that results consistent with both of these conclusions can be measured simultaneously. In Experiments 2 to 4, subjects read expository texts only, and, after each one, answered a question that probed the …
Exploring Individual Differences in Language Validation
Understanders appear to routinely and immediately evaluate the congruence of discourse at many levels of analysis, processes often labeled "validation." This study was an initial exploration of individual differences in discourse validation. Text reading-time profiles were examined as a function of two negligibly correlated reader qualities: first, their working memory resources (indexed by reading span), and second, their accessing of relevant a…
Answering questions about discourse
The goal of this article is to provide an overview of recent advances in the study of the psychology of question answering. Investigators have identified numerous stages of question processing including question encoding, question categorization, selection of an answering strategy, memory search, comparison, and response. Understanders may adopt the strategy of directly retrieving a questioned fact or of judging its plausibility on the basis of g…
Comprehending consistent and inconsistent causal text sequences
A construction‐integration analysis of the comprehension of causal text sequences was performed. According to the validation analysis, the comprehension of both consistent and inconsistent causal sequences requires that tentative bridging inferences be validated with reference to relevant knowledge. Consistent with this proposal, Singer (1993) reported that people needed less time to answer questions about the hypothesized validating facts after …
Processes of Discourse Integration
We used ERP methodology to investigate how readers validate discourse concepts and update situation models when those concepts followed factive (e.g., knew) and nonfactive (e.g., guessed) verbs, and also when they were true, false, or indeterminate with reference to previous discourse. Following factive verbs, early (P2) and later brain components (N400 and late frontal positivity) revealed that relative to true concepts, both false and indetermi…
Inference Processes
There is considerable evidence that readers derive a representation of the situation to which text refers, and that causal relations form an important element of the situation model. Singer and Halldorson (1996) previously showed that, after the reading of the causal sequence, "Dorothy poured the bucket of water on the bonfire, The fire went out," the causal outcome primes the relevant world knowledge that water extinguishes fire. Two new experim…
Representation of Complex Goal Structures in Narrative Comprehension
This study inspected people's sensitivity to complex narrative goal structures. The stories described 2 characters' attempts to accomplish independent subgoals to achieve a joint main goal. In most conditions, the success of the first subgoal was manipulated. The next subgoal always succeeded, and a subsequent target region described the second character attempting to execute the main goal. The target region made no reference to the text ideas of…
Representing and remembering text paraphrases
The contributions of Walter Kintsch
Walter Kintsch's contributions profoundly impacted research on the comprehension of text and discourse and on interdisciplinary cognitive science. Each of his theoretical advances produced a cascade of theoretical and empirical investigations by his own team and many other investigators, which validated and refined those advances. That pattern is examined here with reference to his proposals concerning the propositional representation of text, th…
Phantom Recollection of Bridging and Elaborative Inferences
The phantom recollection model is a multiprocess analysis according to which memory judgments are collaboratively supported by one's recollection of an item in its context, a vaguer sense of stimulus familiarity, and the phantom recollection of the substance and even perceptual details of unstudied but related lures. Phantom recollection has previously been documented to support readers’ judgments of certain logical implications of sentences and …
Representing Complex Narrative Goal Structures
Representing Complex Narrative Goal Structures
This study assessed the relative contribution of situational and memory-based influences to the reader's monitoring of complex narrative goal structures. In 2 experiments, people read stories according to which 2 collaborative subgoals had to succeed for a main goal to be achieved. At a story target region describing an attempt on the main goal, the reader had to make a recognition decision about a probe word representing a manipulated subgoal. E…
Global inferences of text situations
Three views of causal inference state that readers infer causal connections (a) only among nearby text ideas, (b) among distant ideas if the text is locally incoherent, and (c) among distant ideas even if the text is locally coherent. These hypotheses are evaluated with reference to the data of the six empirical articles in this special issue on inference
The role of case‐filling inferences in the coherence of brief passages∗
Three experiments were conducted to determine whether inferences which function so as to preserve the coherence of a passage are drawn in the course of comprehension. The study focused upon the implications of verbs and verb phrases concerning the concepts that fill the related agent, patient, and instrument cases. In all three experiments, judgments about the “necessary” inferences were compared with those about directly expressed ideas and abou…
Answering questions about discourse
The goal of this article is to provide an overview of recent advances in the study of the psychology of question answering. Investigators have identified numerous stages of question processing including question encoding, question categorization, selection of an answering strategy, memory search, comparison, and response. Understanders may adopt the strategy of directly retrieving a questioned fact or of judging its plausibility on the basis of g…
Psychology of Language
Preface 1 Introduction 2 Language and meaning: representing and remembering discourse 3 Syntax and parsing processes 4 The role of knowledge in language comprehension 5 Understanding coherent discourse 6 Theme 7 Inference processes 8 Understanding stories 9 Question answering and sentence verification 10 Natural language understanding by computers - and people References Author index Subject index Acknowledgments
Global inferences of text situations
Three views of causal inference state that readers infer causal connections (a) only among nearby text ideas, (b) among distant ideas if the text is locally incoherent, and (c) among distant ideas even if the text is locally coherent. These hypotheses are evaluated with reference to the data of the six empirical articles in this special issue on inference
Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension.
The authors describe a constructionist theory that accounts for the knowledge-based inferences that are constructed when readers comprehend narrative text. Readers potentially generate a rich variety of inferences when they construct a referential situation model of what the text is about. The proposed constructionist theory specifies that some, but not all, of this information is constructed under most conditions of comprehension. The distinctiv…
Discourse Representation and Text Processing
Comprehending consistent and inconsistent causal text sequences
A construction‐integration analysis of the comprehension of causal text sequences was performed. According to the validation analysis, the comprehension of both consistent and inconsistent causal sequences requires that tentative bridging inferences be validated with reference to relevant knowledge. Consistent with this proposal, Singer (1993) reported that people needed less time to answer questions about the hypothesized validating facts after …
Constructing inferences in expository text comprehension
Prior studies have suggested that causal bridging inferences are constructed during the comprehension of narrative text (Singer, Halldorson, Lear, & Andrusiak, 1992) but not expository text (Noordman, Vonk, & Kempff, 1992). Experiment 1 revealed that results consistent with both of these conclusions can be measured simultaneously. In Experiments 2 to 4, subjects read expository texts only, and, after each one, answered a question that probed the …
Reading and Language Processing
Representation of Complex Goal Structures in Narrative Comprehension
This study inspected people's sensitivity to complex narrative goal structures. The stories described 2 characters' attempts to accomplish independent subgoals to achieve a joint main goal. In most conditions, the success of the first subgoal was manipulated. The next subgoal always succeeded, and a subsequent target region described the second character attempting to execute the main goal. The target region made no reference to the text ideas of…
Text Retrieval
An analysis of text retrieval is advanced, which couples the comprehension principles of construction-integration (Kintsch, 1988, 1998) with the global-match assumptions of contemporary memory theory. The analysis had three components: First, following the tenets of construction-integration, comprehension yields a multilevel (surface, propositional, and situation model) long-term memory representation of the text. Second, the familiarity of a mem…
Inference Processes
There is considerable evidence that readers derive a representation of the situation to which text refers, and that causal relations form an important element of the situation model. Singer and Halldorson (1996) previously showed that, after the reading of the causal sequence, "Dorothy poured the bucket of water on the bonfire, The fire went out," the causal outcome primes the relevant world knowledge that water extinguishes fire. Two new experim…
Representing Complex Narrative Goal Structures
Representing Complex Narrative Goal Structures
This study assessed the relative contribution of situational and memory-based influences to the reader's monitoring of complex narrative goal structures. In 2 experiments, people read stories according to which 2 collaborative subgoals had to succeed for a main goal to be achieved. At a story target region describing an attempt on the main goal, the reader had to make a recognition decision about a probe word representing a manipulated subgoal. E…
Processes of Discourse Integration
We used ERP methodology to investigate how readers validate discourse concepts and update situation models when those concepts followed factive (e.g., knew) and nonfactive (e.g., guessed) verbs, and also when they were true, false, or indeterminate with reference to previous discourse. Following factive verbs, early (P2) and later brain components (N400 and late frontal positivity) revealed that relative to true concepts, both false and indetermi…
Profiles of Discourse Recognition
A discourse recognition theory derived from more general memory formulations would be broad in its psychological implications. This study compared discourse recognition with some established profiles of item recognition. Participants read 10 stories either once or twice each. They then rated their confidence in recognizing explicit, paraphrased, inference, and false (lure) probes. False alarms were higher for unrepeated than for repeated stories,…
Exploring Individual Differences in Language Validation
Understanders appear to routinely and immediately evaluate the congruence of discourse at many levels of analysis, processes often labeled "validation." This study was an initial exploration of individual differences in discourse validation. Text reading-time profiles were examined as a function of two negligibly correlated reader qualities: first, their working memory resources (indexed by reading span), and second, their accessing of relevant a…
Phantom Recollection of Bridging and Elaborative Inferences
The phantom recollection model is a multiprocess analysis according to which memory judgments are collaboratively supported by one's recollection of an item in its context, a vaguer sense of stimulus familiarity, and the phantom recollection of the substance and even perceptual details of unstudied but related lures. Phantom recollection has previously been documented to support readers’ judgments of certain logical implications of sentences and …
Challenges in Processes of Validation and Comprehension
There is accumulating evidence that readers continually evaluate the consistency, congruence, and coherence of text by processes of validation. Validation is initiated immediately on stimulus presentation, may proceed nonstrategically, and serves as a criterion for representational updating. However, validation exhibits a variety of deficiencies. Readers tend to overlook presupposed anomalies and are prone to both endorse text misinformation and …
The contributions of Walter Kintsch
Walter Kintsch's contributions profoundly impacted research on the comprehension of text and discourse and on interdisciplinary cognitive science. Each of his theoretical advances produced a cascade of theoretical and empirical investigations by his own team and many other investigators, which validated and refined those advances. That pattern is examined here with reference to his proposals concerning the propositional representation of text, th…
Representing and remembering text paraphrases
Psychology (21 works) · Computer Science (20 works) · Cognitive psychology (17 works) · Linguistics (16 works) · Artificial Intelligence (15 works) · Natural language processing (15 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (13 works) · Cognitive science (8 works) · Comprehension (8 works) · Educational Strategies and Epistemologies (8 works)