Hemispheric processing in conventional metaphor comprehension: The role of general knowledge.

This study explored the relation between general knowledge and the hemispheric processing of metaphoric expressions in college age students. We hypothesized that prior knowledge influences how the hemispheres process metaphors in these individuals. In this study, 97 young (college-aged) adults completed a general knowledge and vocabulary test, and were then divided into high-knowledge/high-vocabulary and low-knowledge/low-vocabulary groups.

Would a madman have been so wise as this?" The effects of source credibility and message credibility on validation.

Readers rapidly check new information against prior knowledge during validation, but research is inconsistent as to whether source credibility affects validation. We argue that readers are likely to accept highly plausible assertions regardless of source, but that high source credibility may boost acceptance of claims that are less plausible based on general world knowledge. In Experiment 1, participants read narratives with assertions for which the plausibility varied depending on the source.

Hemispheric processing of mental representations during text comprehension: evidence for inhibition of inconsistent shape information.

To successfully understand a text, readers often mentally represent the shape of an object described in a text (e.g., creating a mental image of a sliced tomato when reading about a tomato on a pizza).