WHAT READERS BRING TO THE PROCESSING OF FICTIONAL TEXTS

Research on text processing has generally focused on the types of infe rences that all readers draw in common. Our research examines aspects of processing that depend on the particular relation of the reader to the text Students read fictional stories that contained weak and unsup ported assertions and that were set either at their own school or at a nother school. We expected that they would be prompted to process the Story information thoroughly enough to reject the assertions only if t hey were familiar with the story setting. Consistent with this expecta tion, the results showed that the away-school story, but not the home- school story, had a significant impact on students' beliefs. These res ults support the view that readers must actively construct disbelief w hen processing fictional information.