Identifying component processes in text comprehension: Comment on Haberlandt and Graesser.

Argues that the results of K. F. Haberlandt and A. C. Graesser's (see record 1986-13625-001) study using a moving-window procedure depict the operation of the component processes only generally and that the moving-window procedure, when applied to individual words, appears to lead readers to adopt strategies that alter text comprehension processes, at least as compared with other procedures such as eye-fixation monitoring. It is contended that although Haberlandt and Graesser's results are consistent with current models of text comprehension, they do not provide a sufficiently fine-grained analysis to discriminate among alternative models. (34 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Aging and inhibitory control in text comprehension.

The degree to which inhibitory regulation is related to the initial perception of information or to the control of response tendencies was examined by asking participants to read paragraphs that included italicized, to-be-ignored words. Older adults were more likely than younger adults to begin vocalization of the italicized words and to make text comprehension errors involving the to-be-ignored information. However, younger adults were subsequently more likely to recognize the words they had apparently ignored, suggesting that inhibitory regulation controls selectivity in response rather than initial perception. Commonalities between inhibitory regulation and source monitoring paradigms are demonstrated, and discussion focuses on the degree to which on-line monitoring of goal-relevant response underlies age-related deficits in both domains. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Constructing inferences during narrative text comprehension.

Describes a constructionist theory that accounts for the knowledge-based inferences that are constructed when readers comprehend narrative text. Readers potentially generate a rich variety of inferences when they construct a referential situation model of what the text is about. The proposed constructionist theory specifies that some, but not all, of this information is constructed under most conditions of comprehension. The distinctive assumptions of the constructionist theory embrace a principle of search (or effort) after meaning. According to this principle, readers attempt to construct a meaning representation that addresses the reader's goals, that is coherent at both local and global levels, and that explains why actions, events, and states are mentioned in the text. This study reviews empirical evidence that addresses this theory and contrasts it with alternative theoretical frameworks. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Generative processes in reading comprehension.

In M. C. Wittrock's (1974) generative model of learning with understanding, reading comprehension occurs when readers actively construct meaning for text. Two experiments were conducted with a total of 488 6th graders, in which time to learn was held constant across all treatments. It was predicted and found that the facilitation of generative processes by the insertion of paragraph headings and instructions to generate sentences about story paragraphs during encoding produced the greatest comprehension, followed in turn by instructions to generate sentences, the insertion of paragraph headings, and then by reading the same stories without generative instructions or paragraph headings. The combination of inserted paragraph headings and instructions to generate sentences about paragraphs approximately doubled comprehension and recall in each experiment. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Effect of genre expectations on text comprehension.

This article investigates whether expectations about discourse genre influence the process and products of text comprehension. Ss read texts either with a literary story or with a news story as the purported genre. Subsequently, they verified statements pertaining to the texts. Two experiments demonstrated that Ss reading under a literary perspective had longer reading times, better memory for surface information, and a poorer memory for situational information than those reading under a news perspective. Regression analyses of reading times produced findings that were consistent with the memory data. The results support the notion that readers differentially allocate their processing resources according to their expectations about the genre of a text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Distinctions between reading comprehension and locating information in text.

Reading comprehension is usually operationalized as text recall. However, locating information such as facts, names, or numbers in text is a reading task requiring comprehension that is distinct from text recall in two respects: (1) cognitive processes that control reading comprehension and locating information are expected to be different; (2) the frequency of engagement in comprehension and locating are expected to be independent. We examined these expectations by identifying 4 reading tasks frequently performed by 45 electronics engineers and technicians. Real world reading tasks were simulated with sets of test items in the following domains: (a) comprehending articles, (b) locating information in schematics, (c) locating information in articles, and (d) locating information in manuals. Factor analyses for both the engineers and technicians resulted in two factors, one for comprehension (a) and one for locating information (b, c, d), with a correlation of less than .20. Factor analyses of reading engagement for both groups resulted in factors of (a) comprehending articles, (b) locating information in articles, (c) reading schematics, and (d) reading manuals. Canonical correlations for both groups showed no association between reading engagement variables and reading competence (comprehending and locating) variables. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Working memory and individual differences in comprehension and memory of text.

Attempted to determine whether working memory processes measured by the Reading Span Test would be strongly associated with the ability to integrate information from different parts of a passage to infer an idea not explicitly stated in the passage. The study also assessed the influence of working memory processes on ability to encode explicitly stated and inferred information into long-term memory. 29 undergraduates were administered a letter span test and a reading span test. The ability to store and process information in working memory was shown to be positively related to (a) scores on a standardized reading comprehension test, (b) long-term memory encoding and retrieval of explicitly stated text information, and (c) integration of text information for the purpose of drawing inferences. Variations in only the storage capacity of working memory were not related to these measures. It is concluded that the ability to coordinate storage and process functions in working memory may be an important determinant of text processing skill, especially with respect to encoding information into long-term memory. (12 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Flashcards revisited: Training poor readers to read words faster improves their comprehension of text.

Forty-two below-average readers, between 7 and 10 years of age, were given single-word training, phrase training, or no training. Trained children learned to decode target words quickly and accurately, using flashcards; untrained children only discussed the target words and read them once. Trained and untrained children read aloud passages containing target words and were tested on their comprehension. Trained children had better comprehension than did the untrained children when questioned about passages and asked to retell them. Results suggest that an emphasis on rapid word recognition benefits poor readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Monitoring text comprehension: Individual differences in epistemological standards.

Examined individual differences in reading comprehension standards by asking 9 undergraduates enrolled in a "Fundamentals of Psychology" course to describe the criteria they used to decide whether or not they had comprehended textbook chapters. Ss were classified as having a dualistic (fact-oriented) or a relativistic (context-oriented) conception of knowledge on the basis of their ratings of attitude statements drawn from the work of W. G. Perry (1968). Comprehension criteria reported by dualists more often involved the knowledge category found in the B. S. Bloom et al (1956) book, Taxonomy, and those reported by relativists, the comprehension or application categories. The nature and number of reported comprehension criteria were found to be predictive of course grades. Ss reporting the use of comprehension or application criteria earned better grades than those reporting the use of knowledge criteria; Ss reporting the use of more than one criterion earned better grades than those reporting the use of a single criterion. These data suggest that one's epistemological beliefs may dictate one's choice of comprehension standards and that these epistemological standards, in turn, may control the effectiveness of one's text processing efforts. (22 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Locus of interpretive and inference processes during text comprehension: A comparison of gaze durations and word reading times.

Investigated the locus of interpretive and inference processes during text comprehension. Two positions were contrasted: the buffer-integrate-purge position, which assumes that text-level interpretive and inference processes operate at sentence or clause boundaries, and the immediacy position, which assumes that interpretive and inference processes operate as soon as possible. Two methods of collecting word reading times were contrasted: gaze durations and self-paced word reading times. In simple narrative passages, there was an increase in word reading times for end-of-clause words when self-paced reading times were collected, but there was a decrease when gaze durations were measured with eye tracking equipment. The data indicate that interpretive and inference processes operate immediately and that buffering is to some extent an artifact of the self-paced moving window method. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The function of frame in the comprehension of scientific text.

Children (mean age?=?10 yrs and 1 mo) participated in an experiment to examine how knowledge of the problem frame (C. H. Frederiksen, 1986) affects the construction of the macrostructure (T. A. van Dijk and W. Kintsch, 1983) and enhances text comprehension. Groups of Ss were administered versions of text without annotation, with indication of the nodes of the frame, or with the macrostructure underlined. Ss read a text, wrote a summary, and answered comprehension questions. Performance of good comprehenders and good summarizers improved only when they were provided with macrostructure information. In contrast, poor comprehenders/summarizers benefited from all aids. The data demonstrate the positive role of frames in macrostructure construction and support the model developed by van Dijk and Kintsch. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Memory-based processing as a mechanism of automaticity in text comprehension.

A widespread theoretical assumption is that many processes involved in text comprehension are automatic, with automaticity typically defined in terms of properties (e.g., speed, effort). In contrast, the authors advocate for conceptualization of automaticity in terms of underlying cognitive mechanisms and evaluate one prominent account, the memory-based processing account, which states that one mechanism underlying automatization involves a shift from algorithm-based interpretation of stimuli to retrieval of prior interpretations of those stimuli. During practice, participants repeatedly read short stories containing novel conceptual combinations that were disambiguated with either their dominant or subordinate meaning. During transfer, the combinations were embedded in new sentences that either preserved or changed the disambiguated meaning. The primary dependent variable was reading time in the disambiguating region of target sentences. Supporting the memory-based processing account, speed-ups with practice were larger for repeated versus unrepeated items of the same type, reading times for subordinate versus dominant meanings of the combinations converged on later trials, and practiced meanings were retrieved when items appeared in a transfer context. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Retrieval processes underlying confidence in comprehension judgments.

People's ratings of confidence in ability to answer questions about previously studied expository passages are virtually uncorrelated with test performance. This correlation would be attenuated if confidence ratings were influenced by momentary accessibility (e.g., latency to initial access of probed information) and if test performance were influenced by other aspects of retrieval (e.g., total recall over an interval). To see if momentary accessibility influences confidence ratings, Experiment 1 manipulated accessibility by using self- versus other-generated title probes. Both confidence and accessibility measures varied with generation condition. Experiment 2 provided three findings. First it assessed whether accessibility is the only common factor underlying confidence and domain familiarity ratings by observing whether confidence and familiarity covary wth accessibility partialed out. Marginal covariation implied either some common factor other than accessibility, imperfect measurement of accessibility, or both. Second, negative correlations of rating latencies with rating magnitudes implied that access latency, momentary access rate, or both, affect the ratings. Third, calibration of comprehension was poor, but nonzero. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Anxiety and the interpretation of ambiguity: A text comprehension study.

A. T. Beck's influential cognitive account of anxiety has led to the prediction that individuals vulnerable to anxiety should favor threatening interpretations of ambiguity (e.g., Beck and D. A. Clark, 1988; Beck et al, 1986). The current study introduces a novel adaptation of the RSVP technique, previously used in text comprehension research, to evaluate this hypothesis. Results suggest that a group of 24 high trait anxious students did indeed selectively impose threatening interpretations on unconstrained ambiguous sentences. In contrast, a matched group of 24 low trait anxious students appeared to selectively impose non-threatening interpretations on such ambiguous sentences. These findings are fully consistent with the predicted anxiety-linked interpretative bias. Specific testable hypotheses are developed concerning the types of interpretative idiosyncrasies that plausibly may contribute to pathological anxiety. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Tracking conceptual and semantic processing in the comprehension and production of text and discourse.

Current research on text and discourse processing has focussed on the nature of conceptual and semantic representation and processing, and the relationship between conceptual knowledge and the structure and processing of text or discourse. It is now generally recognized that discourse comprehension involves the construction of a conceptual "situation model" by a listener or reader, that is, a conceptual representation that is appropriate to the content and context of a text or discourse. Current psychological models of discourse production view discourse processing as a process of translating conceptual knowledge structures into "rhetorical" discourse structures that are appropriate to a communicative situation and setting. One important component of such translation is the construction of a conceptual situation model to be communicated to a listener or reader. A second is the construction of a propositional text base to specify precisely the semantic content to be expressed through segments of text or discourse. A third is to define a discourse organization that appropriately guides the reader in constructing a conceptual situation model from the text. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Antecedent search processes and the structure of text.

Kintsch and van Dijk (1978) assumed that when a reader encounters a reference to a concept no longer available in short-term memory, a search through long-term memory for the original concept is necessary. In the present study, subjects read passages that contained two possible antecedents: one appearing early in the passages and the other appearing relatively late. Reading time differences demonstrated that late antecedents are reinstated more quickly than early antecedents, which is in disagreement with predictions from several search models within the Kintsch and van Dijk framework. The best account of the reinstatement time differences assumes that text is represented as an integrated network accessed by a backward parallel search. Experiment 3 demonstrated that naming time, as used in the current studies, measures only current activation and is not sensitive to differences in long-term memory strength. Experiment 4 provided further support for the assumptions of a backward parallel-search model by showing that concepts appearing between an antecedent and the end of a passage are often accessed during the search for the antecedent. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The influence of connectives on young readers' processing and comprehension of text.

Connectives are cohesive devices that signal the relations between clauses and are critical to the construction of a coherent representation of a text's meaning. The authors investigated young readers' knowledge, processing, and comprehension of temporal, causal, and adversative connectives using offline and online tasks. In a cloze task, 10-year-olds were more accurate than 8-year-olds on temporal and adversative connectives, but both age groups differed from adult levels of performance (Experiment 1). When required to rate the “sense” of 2-clause sentences linked by connectives, 10-year-olds and adults were better at discriminating between clauses linked by appropriate and inappropriate connectives than were 8-year-olds. The 10-year-olds differed from adults only on the temporal connectives (Experiment 2). In contrast, online reading time measures indicated that 8-year-olds' processing of text is influenced by connectives as they read, in much the same way as 10-year-olds'. Both age groups read text more quickly when target 2-clause sentences were linked by an appropriate connective compared with texts in which a connective was neutral (and), inappropriate to the meaning conveyed by the 2 clauses, or not present (Experiments 3 and 4). These findings indicate that although knowledge and comprehension of connectives is still developing in young readers, connectives aid text processing in typically developing readers. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Depending on my mood: Mood-driven influences on text comprehension.

Reading comprehension is a critical component of success in educational settings. To date, research on text processing in educational and cognitive psychological domains has focused predominantly on cognitive influences on comprehension and, in particular, those influences that might be derived from particular tasks or strategies. However, there is growing interest in documenting the influences of emotional factors on the processes and products of text comprehension, because these factors are less likely to be associated with explicit reading strategies. The present study examines this issue by evaluating the degree to which mood can influence readers' processing of text. Participants in control, happy-induced, or sad-induced groups thought aloud while reading expository texts. Happy, sad, and neutral moods influenced the degree to which readers engaged in particular types of coherence-building processes in the service of comprehension. Although reading strategies clearly influence processing, understudied factors that are less explicitly goal-driven, such as mood, can similarly impact comprehension activity. These findings have important implications for the role of mood on reading instruction and evaluation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2011 APA, all rights reserved)     

Reading comprehension of scientific text: A domain-specific test of the direct and inferential mediation model of reading comprehension.

Reading comprehension is strongly associated with academic achievement, including science achievement. A better understanding of reading comprehension processes in science text might hold promise for improving science achievement in the long run. We tested the fit of the direct and inferential mediation (DIME) model of reading comprehension (Cromley & Azevedo, 2007) with 737 students in an introductory biology course required for majors. Participants completed multiple choice measures of biology-specific prior-topic knowledge, inference, reading strategy use, reading vocabulary, word reading fluency, and reading comprehension in small groups in our laboratory. Using structural equation modeling to test the fit of the DIME model to the data, we found excellent fit indices for all models. However, the original DIME model fit significantly worse than the measurement model, and a modified model that included a path from reading vocabulary to reading strategy use fit significantly better. Results from the modified model suggest that comprehension interventions for undergraduate students with biology majors might use preteaching to build topic knowledge. We discuss the need for future experimental studies to confirm the vocabulary-reading strategies link. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)