Language; understanding; inferences; anaphora; situation model; physiology of stimulations

2. We relate one part of the story with others
to make coherent, understandable
story.

3.  Inferences
They basically determine what exactly
sentences mean by relating it to our pre
existing knowledge to go beyond the
information provided.

4. “ Goodbye Sheep”
- By Greg Stones

5. Basically work of inference is to create relation
b/w parts of the story.
e.g.- Cartoons, movies.

6.  Narrative texts - It refers to texts in which the
story progresses from one event to another.
 Coherence – It’s the representation of texts
in a persons’ mind.
They can be created by different types of
inferences.

7.  Anaphoric – Inferences that connects an
object or person in one sentence to an object
or person in another sentence.
 E.g.
1. The man was holding the cat. He left it.

8.  2. A man and a women were trying to wash a
cat.
The man was holding the cat while the
women poured water on it.
He said something to her & they started
laughing.

9.  William Wordsworth in ‘ Tintern Abbey’
“Five Years have passed;
five simmers, with the length of
five long winters ! And again I hear these
waters…”
Where is anaphora used ?

10.  Instrument inference – An inference about
tools or methods that occurs while reading
texts or listening to speech.
› E.g.
“William Shakespeare wrote Hamlet while he was
sitting on his desk.”

11.  Casual Inference - An inference that results
in the conclusion, that the events described
in one clause or sentence were caused by
events that occurred in a previous clause or
sentence.
› E.g.
Sharon took an Aspirin.
Her headache went away.

12.  Other casual inferences are not so obvious.
› E.g.
Sharon took shower,
Her headache went away.
We may infer that-
1. The shower relaxed Sharon.
2. Or perhaps singing in shower is therapeutic for
her.

13. Inferences create connections that are
essential for creating coherence in texts &
making these inferences can involve
creativity in the reader.

14.  A situation model is a mental representation
of what a text is about.
Mental Representations as Simulations
This idea has been tested by having participants
read a sentence that describes a situation involving
an object and then indicate as quickly as possible
whether or not a picture shows the object
mentioned in the sentence.

15.  (1) “He hammered the nail into the wall.”
 (2) ”He hammered the nail into the floor.”
 (3) “The ranger saw the eagle in the sky.”
 (4) ”The ranger saw the eagle in its nest.”

16.  (1) “He hammered the nail into the wall.”
 (2) ”He hammered the nail into the floor.”
 (3) “The ranger saw the eagle in the sky.”
 (4) ”The ranger saw the eagle in its nest.”

17.  Task was to indicate whether the pic shows
the object mentioned in the sentence.
 People said YES in all.
 But reaction time is faster when matches
perfectly.

18. The result stated that both experiments support the
idea that the participants created perceptions that
matched the situation as they were reading the
sentences.

19.  How are these simulations reflected in
activity in the brain ?
 In an experiment by Olaf Hauk and
coworkers (2004) in which participants’ brain
activity was measured using fMRI under two
conditions:
 (1) as they moved their right or left foot, left or right
index finger, or tongue.
 (2) as they read “action words” such as kick, pick , or
lick .

21.  The conclusion from this study is that
reading about an action causes activity in the
brain that is similar to the activity that occurs
when carrying out the action.

22.  Speer analyzed the story to determine where
changes in various aspects of the story
occurred.

23. Colors indicate the area of the brain activated
by each type of change. Two things are
clear:
 (1) reading a story activates many areas in
the cortex.
 (2) specifi c actions cause activity in different
areas, although there is also overlap.

24.  The overall conclusion from research on how
people comprehend stories is that
understanding a text or story is a creative
and dynamic process.

25.  - By Tarun