Abstract
The instantiation hypothesis explains that as people read, they spontaneously infer and store contextually appropriate instances for general terms in sentences. Anderson et al. (1976) found support for this hypothesis with college subjects. Although Dreher (in press) adduced evidence that fifth-, sixth-, and eighth-graders can instantiate when asked to do so, and can store and use instantiations already provided in sentences which they are expected to remember, she also discovered that unlike college students, they do not spontaneously instantiate general terms. Consequently, Dreher hypothesized that the results with children may represent a point on a developmental trajectory toward the spontaneous instantiation found at the college level.
The purpose of the present work was to test the developmental trajectory hypothesis by using the same set of sentences and conditions at the college level as had been used by Dreher with children. College subjects were also tested with the same set of sentences used by Anderson et al. so that a comparison could be made between college students' performances on the Dreher and on the Anderson et al. tasks. The results indicated that college students instantiated with both sets of sentences. Hence, the two sets of sentences are functionally equivalent at the college level. Thus, the results confirmed the validity of the instantiation hypothesis at the college level. When coupled with Dreher's previous work, and the evidence of this study that the two sets of sentences are functionally equivalent, these results add support to the developmental gradient-shift explanation for differences between children and college students.