TOPIC OVERVIEWS AND THE PROCESSING OF TOPIC STRUCTURE

In 3 experiments, the authors investigated the information included in a topic overview that is accessed during reading. In each experiment, participants read on a computer, 3 expository passages that discussed 6 topics related to a common theme. The type of information found in the overview was manipulated. In all experiments, the presence of topi c but not order information (i.e., order of topic appearance) led to f aster topic sentence reading times regardless of whether participants read to glean general information from the passage or to attend specif ically to the topic structure. Analyses of reading times on sentences indicating a shift in topic revealed that information about global pas sage structure was also encoded from the overview even in the absence of specific topic structure information. The General Discussion focuse s on the type of information readers encoded from overviews as well as mechanisms by which overview information may be accessed during readi ng.