The Influence of Processing Conversational Information on Inference, Argument Elaboration, and Memory

Abstract

Despite the pervasiveness of conversations as a means of transmitting information consumer researchers have not considered the effects of conversations on consumers' information processing. This article discusses those structural properties of conversation that differentiate it from prose and extends literature from the field of communication to develop a set of propositions regarding how these structural properties of conversation affect consumers inference, argument elaboration, and memory. The article concludes with a discussion of possible methods for examining the propositions. Copyright 1992 by the University of Chicago.