Metacomprehension and Negation: Assessing Readers’ Awareness of the Difficulty of Negated Text

Abstract

The present research explored the awareness that readers have of the difficulty of negative text and the impact that awareness has on their comprehension of that text. Participants read narrative and expository paragraphs, rated their comprehension, and answered a comprehension question. The present research established detrimental effects of negation, as well as demonstrated the readers’ awareness of the difficulty of expository, negative text. However, there were no consistencies in the relationship between readers’ metacomprehension judgments and their actual comprehension performance, suggesting that readers may be unable to use their metacomprehension effectively to adjust their reading strategies when processing negation during reading.

Acknowledgment

We thank Dunja L. Trunk for her comments on earlier drafts of this article and Alison Sieck and Leighann Dudash for their assistance in data collection.