The effects of arousal on literal and inferential comprehension of text over short- and long-term retention intervals were studied using 369 elementary school children. Putative arousal manipulations were of two types: expectation and deviations from expectation as established by an advance organizer followed by text that for different experimental conditions varied in structure, and insertion of words varying in arousal value. It was found that expectancy had no significant effect on literal and inferential comprehension at either retention interval. There was also no significant effect of the advance organizer itself. Word arousal (positive affect) significantly aided long-term literal comprehension, in line with previous work, while long-term inferential comprehension was significantly facilitated by negative affect. (Author)