Writing quality, reading skills, and domain knowledge as factors in text comprehension.

103 undergraduates listened to and recalled 3 passages and were given a general reading comprehension test. The passages were presented such that Ss could use general knowledge to understand them or such that no specific world knowledge seemed applicable. The passages were written in 2 different versions, preserving their content but varying their style. All 3 factors (domain knowledge, writing style, and skill) significantly affected reproductive recall, and there were no interactions between these factors. However, while good writing was sufficient to improve the reproduction of the texts, an analysis of the recall elaborations Ss made revealed that the correctness of their elaborations depended strongly on the availability of appropriate domain knowledge. (French abstract) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Text comprehension, memory, and learning

People are often able to reproduce a text quite well but are unable to use the information in the text for other purposes. Factors that help people to reproduce a text have been studied for some time. This article explores ways that enable people to learn from texts. Content overlap between a text and the reader's prior knowledge is identified as one factor, and methods are proposed to identify whether a text is suitable for readers with given background knowledge. For readers with low background knowledge, a text should be as coherent and explicit as possible to facilitate learning. However, data are presented to show that for readers with adequate background knowledge, texts with coherence gaps that stimulate constructive activities are in fact better for learning.     

Introduction to the 100th anniversary issue of the Psychological Review..

Discusses the evolution of the Psychological Review from its inception in 1894 as a general journal to its current status as a forum for theoretical discussion. A historical overview of Psychological Review is presented, and its 2 main subfields, cognition and perception, are outlined. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Enhancing students' comprehension of the conceptual structure of algebra word problems.

Three experiments investigated Ss' ability to classify and solve similar algebra word problems. Four groups of problems were used, varying along 2 dimensions: problem equation type (2 types) and problem structure type (2 types). Ss were presented problem pairs and asked to rate the potential usefulness of Problem 1 in solving Problem 2. With no instruction, Ss rated problems sharing conceptual structure as being more helpful, regardless of equation type. Pairs with similar equations did not show this effect (Exp 1). This effect was enhanced by brief instruction, which illustrated structural similarities (Exp 2). Finally, a brief tutorial improved problem-solving performance (Exp 3). The improvement was particularly evident when target problems shared structural components but had different equations. The results are interpreted within S. K. Reed's (1987) structure-mapping model. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Understanding and solving word arithmetic problems.

Presents a processing model that deals explicitly with both the text-comprehension and problem-solving aspects of word arithmetic problems. General principles from a theory of text processing developed by T. A. Van Dijk and the 1st author (1983) are combined with hypotheses by M. S. Riley et al (1983) about semantic knowledge for understanding problem texts in an integrated model of problem comprehension. The model simulates construction of cognitive representations that include information that is appropriate for problem-solving procedures that children use. Several information-processing steps are distinguished, and various levels of representation are described. The model provides an analysis of processing requirements, including requirements for short-term memory that differ among types of problems. Predictions about difficulty of problems based on these processing differences are generally consistent with reported data. (38 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

How experts' adaptations to representative task demands account for the expertise effect in memory recall: Comment on Vicente and Wang (1998).

K. A. Ericsson and W. Kintsch's (1995) theoretical framework of long-term working memory (LTWM) accounts for how experts acquire encoding and retrieval mechanisms to adapt to real-time demands of working memory during representative interactions with their natural environments. The transfer of the same LTWM mechanisms is shown to account for the expertise effect in unrepresentative "contrived" memory tests. Therefore, K. J. Vicente and J. H. Wang's critique of the generalizability of the LTWM framework is rejected. Their proposed refutation of LTWM accounts is found to be based on misrepresented facts. The process-based framework of LTWM is shown to be superior to their product theory because it can explain interactions of the expertise effect in "contrived" recall under several testing conditions differing in presentation rate, instructions, and memory procedures. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Learning-disabled adolescents' comprehension of naturalistic narratives.

The ability of 20 normally achieving and 20 learning-disabled 8th- and 9th-grade readers to comprehend and interpret 2 fairly long and complex narratives, describing the emotional reactions of characters to realistic situations, was compared. The pattern of recall across story categories was similar for both groups. However, the learning-disabled readers not only recalled less overall than the normal readers, they were also less successful at differentiating levels of importance in the macrostructure of the stories. All students included less of the information needed to understand the characters' interactions in the more difficult story than in the easier story. Although normal readers could supply this information when directly probed for it, learning-disabled students were less successful in this respect, suggesting serious weaknesses in their ability to construct an appropriate situation model. Implications for the instruction of learning-disabled students are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Summarizing stories after reading and listening.

48 college students either listened to or read 3 tape-recorded stories, each about 2,000 words in length. Immediately after processing each story, Ss wrote a summary in 60–80 words. A comparison of the summaries written after reading with those written after listening revealed only minor differences. Ss tended to include a little more idiosyncratic detail in their summaries after listening than after reading, but the shared content of the summaries remained remarkably unchanged. It is concluded that these results can aid in the identification of the common core of comprehension processes that underlie both listening and skilled reading. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Complex problem-solving: a field in search of a definition?

Complex problem-solving (CPS) is as an area of cognitive science that has received a good amount of attention, but theories in the field have not progressed accordingly. The reasons could be the lack of good definitions and classifications of the tasks (taxonomies). Although complexity is a term used pervasively in psychology and is operationalized in different ways, there are no psychological theories of complexity. The definition of problem-solving has been changed in the past to reflect the varied interests of the researchers and has lost its initial concreteness. These two facts together make it difficult to define CPS or make clear if CPS should reuse the theory and methods of classical problem-solving or on the contrary should build a theoretical structure starting from scratch. A taxonomy is offered of tasks using both formal features and psychological features that are theory-independent that could help compare the CPS tasks used in the literature. The adequateness is also reviewed of the most extended definitions of CPS and conclude that they are in serious need of review, since they cover tasks that are not considered problem-solving by their own authors or are not complex, but ignore others that should clearly be included.     

Modeling user action planning: A comprehension based approach

We review our efforts to model user command production in an attempt to characterize the knowledge users of computers have at various stages of learning. We modeled computer users with a system called NETWORK (Mannes and Kintsch, 1988; 1991) and modeled novice, intermediate, and expert UNIX command production data collected by Doane et al. (1990b) with a system called UNICOM (Doane et al., 1989a; 1991). We use the construction-integration theory of comprehension proposed by Kintsch (1988) as a framework for our analyses. By focusing on how instructions activate the knowledge rele/ant to the performance of the specified task, we have successfully modeled major aspects of correct user performance by incorporating in the model knowledge about individual commands and knowledge that allows the correct combination of elementary commands into complex, novel commands. Thus, experts can be modeled in both NETWORK and in UNICOM. We further show that salient aspects of novice and intermediate performance can be described by removing critical elements of knowledge from the expert UNICOM model. Results suggest that our comprehension-based approach has promise for understanding user interactions and implications for system design are discussed.Dr. Stephanie Doane is Assistant Professor of Psychology and appointed at the Beckman Institute at the University of Illinois. Shereceived her BAin Experimental Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, her MS in Experimental Psychology from Villanova University, and her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of California, Santa Barbara. Dr. Doane's research has focused on skill acquisition and the development and validation of theoretically-based computational models of cognitive processes. Her current research addresses issues of learning to interact with complex systems and the role of learning context in skill acquisition.Dr. Suzanne Mannes is Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Delaware. She received her BA in Psychology from the State University of New York College at Plattsburgh and received her PhD in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder. Her experimental research focuses on the role of prior knowledge in text comprehension, particularly as it pertains to problem-solving abilities. She also investigates the use of hybrid computer systems to simulate results from such studies.Dr. Walter Kintsch is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado in Boulder. He received his MA and PhD degrees in Experimental Psychology from the University of Kansas. His main area of interest has been the psychology of language and memory. He is currently the editor of the Psychological review.Peter Poison is Professor of Psychology and member of the Institute of Cognitive Science at the University of Colorado. He received his BA degree in Psychology and BS degree in Industrial Engineering from Stanford University and his PhD degree in Psychology from Indiana University. Dr. Poison's research has focused on the development and empirical evaluation of mathematical and computer simulation models of cognitive processes including transfer of training, problem solving, and the acquisition of cognitive skills. His current research deals with quantitative models of human-computer interaction and the application of such models to the design of more easily learned computer systems.