{"id":{"repo_id":"gsu","oai_identifier":"oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1450"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/gsu/oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1450","repository":{"repo_id":"gsu","name":"Georgia Southern University","base_url":"https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/do/oai/"},"display":{"title":"Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text","abstract":"The combined influence of causal connectives and varying levels of causal relatedness on online and offline comprehension of expository texts was investigated. The current hypothesis was that causal connectives would encourage elaborative processing and online generation of bridging inferences, particularly in the moderately to low causally related sentence pairs. This was predicted because past research has noted causal connectives capacity to elicit generation of inferences online. Connectives were not predicted to encourage inference generation in the higher-related items because the causal bridging inference should be obvious to the reader. To test this, a new set of 24 expository items was generated with four versions of each item representing varying levels of causal relatedness. Results show little evidence supporting the hypotheses. To account for the null findings, the potential difficulty and participants lack of familiarity with the text content are discussed as factors. Suggestions for future research are presented.","abstract_html":"The combined influence of causal connectives and varying levels of causal relatedness on online and offline comprehension of expository texts was investigated. The current hypothesis was that causal connectives would encourage elaborative processing and online generation of bridging inferences, particularly in the moderately to low causally related sentence pairs. This was predicted because past research has noted causal connectives capacity to elicit generation of inferences online. Connectives were not predicted to encourage inference generation in the higher-related items because the causal bridging inference should be obvious to the reader. To test this, a new set of 24 expository items was generated with four versions of each item representing varying levels of causal relatedness. Results show little evidence supporting the hypotheses. To account for the null findings, the potential difficulty and participants lack of familiarity with the text content are discussed as factors. Suggestions for future research are presented.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Simpkins, Benjamin G."],"institution":null,"degree_name":"Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)","degree_level":"Thesis (open access)","degree_discipline":"Department of Psychology","degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":["Janice N. Steirn","Daniel Webster"],"advisors":[],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2005,"date_issued":"2005-07-01T07:00:00Z","date_published":"2005-07-01T07:00:00Z","updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:26:52Z","subjects":["ETD","Discourse Processing","Connectives","Conjunctions","Causality","Causal Relatedness","Bridging Inferences","Elaborative Inferences","Local Coherence","Expository Text","Discourse markers","English language","Causative"],"languages":[],"rights":[],"rights_urls":[],"identifier_entries":[]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/450","outbound_label":"Repository record","outbound_source":"dc:identifier"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor","label":"Contributor","values":["Janice N. 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The current hypothesis was that causal connectives would encourage elaborative processing and online generation of bridging inferences, particularly in the moderately to low causally related sentence pairs. This was predicted because past research has noted causal connectives capacity to elicit generation of inferences online. Connectives were not predicted to encourage inference generation in the higher-related items because the causal bridging inference should be obvious to the reader. To test this, a new set of 24 expository items was generated with four versions of each item representing varying levels of causal relatedness. Results show little evidence supporting the hypotheses. To account for the null findings, the potential difficulty and participants lack of familiarity with the text content are discussed as factors. Suggestions for future research are presented."]},{"key":"dc:title","label":"Title","values":["Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text"]}]}],"canonical_facts":{"dc:contributor":["Janice N. Steirn","Daniel Webster"],"dc:creator":["Simpkins, Benjamin G."],"dc:date.available":["2013-10-17T07:00:00Z"],"dc:description.abstract":["The combined influence of causal connectives and varying levels of causal relatedness on online and offline comprehension of expository texts was investigated. The current hypothesis was that causal connectives would encourage elaborative processing and online generation of bridging inferences, particularly in the moderately to low causally related sentence pairs. This was predicted because past research has noted causal connectives capacity to elicit generation of inferences online. Connectives were not predicted to encourage inference generation in the higher-related items because the causal bridging inference should be obvious to the reader. To test this, a new set of 24 expository items was generated with four versions of each item representing varying levels of causal relatedness. Results show little evidence supporting the hypotheses. To account for the null findings, the potential difficulty and participants lack of familiarity with the text content are discussed as factors. Suggestions for future research are presented."],"dc:identifier":["https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/450"],"dc:subject":["ETD","Discourse Processing","Connectives","Conjunctions","Causality","Causal Relatedness","Bridging Inferences","Elaborative Inferences","Local Coherence","Expository Text","Discourse markers","English language","Causative"],"dc:title":["Connectives and Causal Relatedness in Expository Text"],"thesis:degree_discipline":["Department of Psychology"],"thesis:degree_level":["Thesis (open access)"],"thesis:degree_name":["Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)"]},"updated_at":"2026-07-24T02:26:52Z"}