Canceling updating in the comprehension of counterfactuals embedded in narratives
@article{deVega2007CancelingUI,
title={Canceling updating in the comprehension of counterfactuals embedded in narratives},
author={Manuel de Vega and Mabel Urrutia and Bernardo Riffo},
journal={Memory \& Cognition},
year={2007},
volume={35},
pages={1410-1421}
}Participants were given counterfactual sentences—for example, “If Mary had won the lottery she would have bought a Mercedes car” —or factual sentences—for example, “Because Mary won the lottery, she bought a Mercedes car” —embedded in short narratives. Reading times showed that readers were immediately sensitive to the special status of counterfactual information (Experiment 1). In addition, probe-recognition latencies demonstrated that old information was more accessible in counterfactual than…
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