Validation of illustrated texts: Can pictures raise awareness of inconsistencies?

Reading research suggests that readers passively validate incoming textual information with information presented before or other information stored in long-term memory. Nevertheless, readers are often not consciously aware of inconsistencies. In three experiments, we investigated whether illustrating an inconsistency with a picture can increase the awareness of this inconsistency and whether the awareness of inconsistencies differs for inconsistencies presented within the text modality or between the picture and the text modality (i.e., cross-modal validation process). We replicated a study by Singer et al. (2023) but added pictures to the conscious inconsistency detection paradigm introduced there. Participants read short texts and were asked to judge for each sentence whether it was consistent or inconsistent with all information presented before. In Experiment 1, we varied whether a target sentence was consistent or inconsistent with the textual information presented beforehand and whether the information beforehand was illustrated or not. In Experiments 2 and 3, we implemented a condition where the inconsistency was only evident between a picture and the later target sentence, making cross-modal validation processes necessary. All experiments suggested that participants overlooked 40% or more of the inconsistencies and that pictures did not increase the conscious awareness of inconsistencies if the inconsistency was already evident within the text modality. Moreover, Experiments 2 and 3 suggested that cross-modal validation processes occurred. However, participants overlooked even more inconsistencies if the inconsistency was evident between the picture and the text modality. We conclude that cross-modal validation processes may be more resource demanding.