Comprehension: A Paradigm for Cognition

Walter Kintsch presents a theory of human text comprehension and extends his analysis to related areas. Comprehension is conceptualized as a two-stage process: first, approximate, inaccurate representations are constructed via context-insensitive construction rules, which are then integrated via a spreading activation constraint-satisfaction process. In Part I, the general theory is presented and an attempt is made to situate it within the current theoretical landscape in cognitive science. Part II discusses such questions as: How are word meanings identified in a discourse context, representations of texts, both at the local and global level? How do texts and the mental models readers construct from them represent situations? What is the role of working memory in comprehension? What is the distinction between remembering a text and learning from a text? What are the implications of these findings for how people solve word problems, how they act out verbal instructions, and how they make decisions based on verbal information?