On-Line Evidence for Spontaneous Trait Inferences at Encoding

Three experiments obtained evidence that spontaneous trait inferences (STIs) occur on-line, at encoding. In each, participants read many sentences on a computer screen. After each paragraph, they indicated whether it included a test probe word. Paragraphs that imply but do not contain traits should increase errors or reaction times (RTs) to trait probes. In Experiment 1, trait-implying paragraphs produced more errors than control paragraphs, supporting the hypothesis. In Experiments 2 and 3, with feedback on each trial, longer RTs supported the hypothesis. STIs had the same effects as McKoon and Ratcliff's "predicting inferences. " Unexpectedly, participants gained control over STIs and predicting inferences, so that RT differences (and error differences in Experiment 1) declined over trials. Analyses of reading times in Experiment 3 ruled out several alternative explanations. Results demonstrate that social inferences can occur spontaneously at encoding and suggest that immediate feedback may make control possible.