Next Word on Verbal Activity

摘要

The recent literature on individual differences in verbal ability is reviewed. People who demonstrate generally high verbal comprehension are quicker and more accurate in identifying lexical items, and are more rapid in parsing sentences. They are not more sensitive to the general gist of a passage, and thus do not respond to priming from context more than do people of lesser verbal ability. The picture that emerges is that the person with good verbal ability is more aware of precisely what the linguistic message is, and how it can be manipulated independent of context. Thus the verbally competent person is better able to respond to the meaning of the message itself, and does not need to depend upon contextual cues to the extent that the less verbally competent person does.