Cognitive Processes in Audience Decision Making 121asked to think aloud and guess the theme of a short technical passage as they read it. The results
showed that readers hypothesized the theme of the passage immediately after reading the initial
sentence. Readers revised their hypothesis later if subsequent sentences did not fi t the theme they
had hypothesized.^165
A study of students listening to algebra word problems found that early verbal cues led them toactivate one of several possible schemata for the word problems they heard.^166 Half of the students
in the study categorized problems after hearing less than one-fi fth of the problem stated. View-
ers, on the other hand, activate multiple schemata simultaneously until one schema emerges as the
dominant one.^167 For example, when trying to categorize atypical targets such as males with very
long hair or females with very short hair, viewers simultaneously activate schemata for both male
and female genders.^168
Other schemata can be internally activated by the audience’s own goals for reading or listeningor by the schemata already activated in their minds.^169 If readers believe a sentence states the main
theme of a text, and is thereby capable of activating the appropriate schema, they will read it more
slowly than other sentences.^170 Surprisingly, readers spend more time reading sentences that intro-
duce new topics even when paragraph boundaries are not indicated.^171 However, readers take just
as long to read the fi rst sentence of a text whether it is a topic sentence or, contrary to the typical
reader’s hypothesis, merely a supporting detail.^172
Consequences of Faulty Schema Activation
If the audience is unable to activate the appropriate schema for a document or presentation, their
comprehension suffers.^173 The reason a schema is not activated may be that the audience does not
possess the appropriate schema, or it may be that the wording of the text or presentation is ineffec-
tive in activating it.^174 In an intriguing experiment, cognitive scientists John Bransford and Marcia
Johnson asked readers to read the following paragraph. Interestingly, readers could not make sense
of the paragraph as a whole although each separate sentence was easy for them to comprehend.
The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course,
one pile may be suffi cient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go some-
where else due to a lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is
important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do a few things at once than too many.
In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can
be expensive as well. At fi rst the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it
will become just another facet of life. It is diffi cult to foresee any end to the necessity for this
task in the immediate future, but then, one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one
arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate
places. Eventually, they will be used once more and the whole cycle will have to be repeated.However, if readers were allowed to read the paragraph’s title, “Washing Clothes,” beforethey read the paragraph, then they had no diffi culty understanding it. Those readers also recalled
more information from the paragraph than the readers who read the paragraph without its
schema-activating title.^175
Audiences can, of course, activate the wrong schema. The study cited earlier of students listen-ing to algebra word problems and classifying them into problem types found that fully one-half
of them activated the wrong schema as they heard the fi rst part of each problem.^176 For instance,
some students activated the schema for a triangle problem when they should have activated the
schema for a distance, time, rate problem. Activating the wrong schema caused several students to