對於主張的辯證方式（justification）最常討論到的是實徵數據與機制原理，Kuhn（1993）認為應該要屏除原本的信念，獨立的看待實徵數據，但Koslowski與Masnick（2012）認為這兩者難以輕易分割，彼此會相互影響，且機制原理會協助對於數據的判斷。此研究針對大學生了解其閱讀科學文本後的辯證方式與閱讀歷程。科學文本會同時呈現機制原理與實徵數據，從中操縱機制原理可能性（即能否直接想出實徵數據變項間的因果機制），以了解大學生究竟會如何評估科學主張；並同時使用眼球追蹤系統記錄大學生閱讀的歷程。
研究結果顯示，機制原理可能性，對於閱讀前的主張可能性評級有顯著的影響，如同實驗操弄；閱讀後的主張可能性評級都有顯著提升，表示受試者獲得數據和機制的資訊之後都會更相信主張的可能性。在辯證方式上，大多數受試者在兩主張會採用相同的辯證方式（34%使用數據為主；38%使用機制為主）；但在採用不同辯證方式的情況下，大部分的受試者（26%），在機制原理可能性高的主張以數據為主，機制原理可能性低的主張以機制為主，後者因提供機制資訊可讓受試者更了解數據變項間的因果關係，而前者不需要額外提供機制資訊即可了解故以數據為主，如同實驗預期。在閱讀時則發現不同的結果，在閱讀時整體會較注重機制的辯證，但以數據來說會在機制原理可能性低的文本花較多時間，未完全符合在機制原理可能性高的主張以數據為主，機制原理可能性低的主張以機制為主的實驗預期，可能的原因是文本內容對於受試者的易理解性導致，所以會在比較不易理解的部分花更多時間閱讀，顯示主張可能性評級、辯證方式、及閱讀歷程反應不同的認知歷程。

Empirical evidence and mechanism are most frequently discussed types of justification. Kuhn (1993) believed that empirical evidence should be treated independently from personal beliefs which should be dismissed. In contrast, Koslowski and Masnick (2012) thought that mechanism and evidence are interdependent, and that mechanism is informative in evidence evaluation. Therefore, this study focused on college students' justification evaluation and reading process of scientific texts with empirical evidence and mechanism presented at the same time. An eye tracking system was used to record the reading process of college students. The main manipulation of this study was mechanistic plausibility (high/low) of the causal relationship between two variables.
The results showed that mechanistic plausibility had a significant impact on plausibility rating before reading, as expected. After reading information about empirical evidence and mechanism, plausibility rating increased in both texts. Most participants provided same types of justification for both texts (34% mainly used empirical evidence; while 38% mainly used mechanism). For participants who provided different types of justification, most of the them (26%) mainly used empirical evidence for the high-plausible text and mainly used mechanism for the low-plausible text. This pattern was expected as mechanistic information helped participants to understand the causal relationship between variables in the low-plausible text, while it was easy to understand the relationship in the high-plausible text so empirical evidence was used. However, the pattern of results was different in reading. Overall, participants spent more time reading mechanistic information than empirical evidence. Concerning empirical evidence, participants spent more time in the low-plausible than high-plausible text, which was in contrast to the expectation. One possible reason was that differences in comprehensibility between the mechanistic information and empirical evidence influenced reading time more than the main manipulation. Thus, plausibility rating, types of justification, and reading time may reflect different cognitive process in this study.

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