# A case study of anomaly detection -Shallow semantic processing and cohesion establishment **Opening (not a real abstract):** A case study of anomaly detection: Shallow semantic processing and cohesion establishment STEPHEN B. BARTON and ANTHONY J. SANFORD and ESRC Human Communication Research Center Universities of Edinburgh and Glasgow, Scotland Although the establishment of a coherent mental representation depends on semantic analysis, such analysis is not necessarily complete. This is illustrated by failures to notice the anomaly in questions such as, "When an airplane crashes, where should the survivors be buried?" Four experiments were carried out to extend knowledge of what determines the incidental detection of the critical item. Detection is a function of the goodness of global fit of the item (Experiments 1 and 2) and the extent to which the scenario predicts the item (Experiment 3). Global good fit appears to result in shallow processing of details. In Experiment 4, it is shown that if satisfactory coherence can be established without detailed semantic analysis, through the recruitment **Authors:** [[and ESRC Human Communication Research Center]]