Data_Sheet_1_Explicit (Not Implicit) Attitudes Mediate the Focus of Attention During Sentence Processing.docx

Many studies showed that comprehenders monitor changes in protagonists’ emotions and actions. This article reports two experiments that explored how focusing comprehenders’ attention on a particular property of the protagonist dimension (e.g., emotional or action state) affects the accessibility of information about target objects mentioned in the sentence. Furthermore, the present research examined whether participants’ attitudes toward the issues described in the sentence can modulate comprehension processes. To this end, we asked participants to read sentences about environmental issues that focused comprehenders’ attention on different mental and physical attributes of the same entities (protagonists and objects) and then self-report their own thoughts on the topic of environment by responding to the items assessing their environmental awareness. Importantly, we manipulated the task requirements across two experiments by administering a self-report task (Experiment 1), which required the participants to rate the seriousness and the frequency of the problem mentioned in a sentence; and administering a sentence-picture verification paradigm (Experiment 2), which required the participants to merely indicate if the object depicted in the picture (related to a certain environmental problem) was mentioned in the preceding sentence. The results of these experiments suggest that the focus of a sentence on the environmental problem (rather than the protagonist’s emotion and action) enhances the accessibility of information about environmental issues (e.g., plastic garbage); that the comprehender’s level of environmental awareness influences one’s attention during sentence processing; and that comprehender characteristics significantly modulate comprehension processes only when the measures tap into explicit (and not implicit) processes.

已有多项研究表明，话语理解者（comprehenders）会追踪主人公（protagonist）的情绪与行为变化。本文报告了两项实验，探究将话语理解者的注意力聚焦于主人公维度的某一特定属性（如情绪状态或行为状态）时，会如何影响句中提及的目标对象相关信息的可及性。此外，本研究还考察了被试对文本中描述议题的态度，是否能够调控话语理解过程。为此，我们让被试阅读围绕环境议题展开的文本，这类文本会将话语理解者的注意力聚焦于同一实体（主人公与对象）的不同心理与物理属性；随后通过作答评估其环境意识的条目，让被试自我报告其对环境主题的看法。值得注意的是，我们在两项实验中对任务要求进行了操控：在实验1中采用自我报告任务，要求被试对文本中提及的环境问题的严重程度与发生频率进行评分；在实验2中则采用句子-图片验证范式（sentence-picture verification paradigm），仅要求被试判断图片中描绘的、与某一环境问题相关的对象是否曾在前文的句子中出现过。上述实验结果表明：将文本聚焦于环境问题（而非主人公的情绪与行为），能够提升环境议题相关信息（如塑料垃圾）的可及性；话语理解者的环境意识水平会影响其在句子加工过程中的注意力分配；且仅当测量手段涉及外显（explicit）而非内隐（implicit）加工过程时，理解者的个体特征才会显著调控话语理解过程。