Cataphoric Devices in Spoken Discourse

Overview

Journal Cogn Psychol

Publisher Elsevier

Specialty Psychology

Date 1995 Aug 1

PMID 7641525

Citations 15

Authors

M A Gernsbacher

J D Jescheniak

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

We propose that speakers mark key words with cataphoric devices. Cataphoric devices are counterparts to anaphoric devices: Just as anaphoric devices enable backward reference, cataphoric devices enable forward reference. And just as anaphoric devices mark concepts that have been mentioned before, cataphoric devices mark concepts that are likely to be mentioned again. We investigated two cataphoric devices: spoken stress and the indefinite this. Our experiments demonstrated three ways that concepts marked by cataphoric devices gain a privileged status in listeners' mental representations: Cataphoric devices enhance the activation of the concepts that they mark; cataphoric devices suppress the activation of previously mentioned concepts; and cataphoric devices protect the concepts that they mark from being suppressed by subsequently mentioned concepts.

Citing Articles

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Suppression and Working Memory in Auditory Comprehension of L2 Narratives: Evidence from Cross-Modal Priming.

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Focus takes time: structural effects on reading.

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How Automatically Do Readers Infer Fictional Characters' Emotional States?.

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