Recent literature on individual differences in verbal ability indicates that people demonstrating high verbal comprehension are quicker and more accurate in identifying lexical items, as well as more rapid in parsing sentences. They are not, however, more sensitive to the general gist of a passage, and thus do not respond to priming from context more than do people of lesser verbal ability. People with good verbal ability are more aware of a passage's precise linguistic message and of the ways of manipulating it independent of context. Thus, verbally competent people are better able to respond to the meaning of the message itself and do not need to depend upon contextual clues to the same extent as the less verbally adept. (Author/MM)