Frameworks for Comprehending Discourse

Abstract

Thirty physical education students and 30 music education students read a passage that could be given either a prison break or a wrestling interpretation, and another passage that could be understood in terms of an evening of card playing or a rehearsal session of a woodwind ensemble.Scores on disambiguating multiple choice tests and theme-revealing disambiguations and intrusions in free recall showed striking relationships to the subject's background. These results indicate that high-level schemata provide the interpretative framework for comprehending discourse. The fact that most subjects gave each passage one distinct interpretation or another and reported being unaware of other perspectives while reading suggest that schemata can cause a person to see a message in a certain way, without even considering alternative interpretations.

Individual differences in bridging inference processes

“…The text ideas and the relevant knowledge must co-occur in working memory for bridging to result. There have been few attempts to examine the impact of individual differences in knowledge access on inference processing, although the role of readers' specialized knowledge has been documented (e.g., Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, & Goetz, 1976;Post, Greene, & Bruder, 1982;Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss, 1979).…”

Schema-Directed Processes in Language Comprehension

“…Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, and Goetz (1977) Most people interpret this passage in terms of an evening of cards but it can be interpreted as about a rehearsal of a woodwind ensemble. Another passage is usually seen as about a convict planning his escape from prison, however it is possible to see it in terms of a wrestler hoping to break the hold of an opponent.…”

Effects of the reader's schema at different points in time.

“…Or, alternate introductions to the passage have been written so as to cause readers to identify with different characters (Owens, Dafoe, & Bower, 1979). Or, schemata have been manipulated by selecting subjects with different amounts of knowledge about a topic or different cultural backgrounds (Anderson, Reynolds, Schallert, & Goetz, 1977;Steffensen, Jogdeo, & Anderson, 1978;Spilich, Vesonder, Chiesi, & Voss, 1979 Our previous research has established that a schema has an effect on retrieval in addition to any it may have on encoding (Anderson & Pichert, 1978). Subjects directed to take either a homebuyer or a burglar perspective read a story about two boys playing hooky from school.…”