Sentences in lists and in connected discourse

Abstract

The recent deluge of published sutdies employing sentences or connected discourse as the unit of study has left the question of whether the two types of materials are essentailly similar or importantly different unsolved. An understanding of this issue is crucial to theory, since the existence of major psychological differences between the comprehension, learning, and memory of sentence lists and connected discourse would make a unified theory covering both types of materials exceedingly difficult to formulate. While offering no final resolution of the issue, the present paper examines the evidence, considers the implications of several major theoretical developments, and poses questions amenable to experimentation. It is hoped that the paper will serve as a springboard to a higher level of understanding of how people process these two common types of experimental materials. Sentences