Abstract: An open-questionnaire experimental method was used to assess the familiarity, standardness and distinctiveness of some activities which fonmed events. According to this assessment, ten life events and the activities that formed these events were selected as the base for two experiments. ln these experiments, 3 within-subjects factors were tested. They were standardness of the activities (high, low), distinctiveness of the activities (high, low) and position of the target (predictive, event / activity). A between-subjects fact was working memory capacity(high, low). The experimental task was naming. The results indicated that the working memory capacity reflected not only the naming speed but also resource consuming patterns during reading. Distinctiveness may be more important in from-activity- to -event predictive inference, and standardness seems more essential to fromevent-to-activity predictive inference.

Key words: predictive inference, world knowledge, semantic association, working memory