The co-influence of grammatical markers and comprehender goals on the memory for short discourse

The co-influence of grammatical markers (connectives) and comprehender goal s (directed forgetting cues) on the memory for sentences was examined in th ree experiments. Participants read statement pairs which were linked by a c onnective (e.g., because) or stood alone as separate sentences. After each statement. a cue to remember or to forger the preceding statement was prese nted. In Experiment 1, participants had more difficulty forgetting the seco nd clause in the presence of the connective because than in its absence whe n statement 1 was to be remembered. In Experiment 2, the pattern of directe d forgetting was similar for the connectives because and and, suggesting th at one reason why directed forgetting was reduced for the second statement in Experiment 1 was that it merely continued a linguistic structure rather than increasing causal-based inferences. In Experiment 3. the connective wa s placed after the cue for statement 1, making it more difficult for reader s to incorporate the second clause to the first. Under these conditions, th e connective did not reduce intentional forgetting. The pattern of results indicates that the goal to forget a phrase has a smaller impact on forgetti ng when an incoming representation can br readily attached to a TBR represe ntation in working memory as directed by a grammatical marker. (C) 1999 Aca demic Press.