The effects of readers’ goals on inference generation and memory for texts

Broek, Paul van den; Lorch, Robert F.; Linderholm, Tracy; Gustafson, Mary

doi:10.3758/bf03206376

Cited by 315 publications

(319 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…Such differences may also reflect more superficial processing of irrelevant text (Kaakinen & Hyönä, 2008) The suggestion that higher level sentence integration processes differ for reading and topic scanning also may be couched in terms of Kintsch's (1998) (Just & Carpenter, 1987), scanning may not involve accurate recognition of all words in the text. Therefore the "construction" phase in Kintsch's model may be sparser during topic scanning compared to reading for comprehension, due to lower "standards of coherence" (van den Broek et al, 1995Broek et al, , 2001) for scanning. Topic scanning may require inferences to be made from only a subset of words to extract the macrostructure of the text (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978) and this may be sufficient to judge whether text is relevant to the topic.…”

Section: Later Sentence Processing (Re-reading): Implications For Eyementioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movements during reading and topic scanning: Effects of word frequency.

White¹,

Warrington²,

McGowan³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

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The study examines the nature of eye movement control and word recognition during scanning for a specific topic, compared to reading for comprehension. Experimental trials included a manipulation of word frequency: the critical word was frequent (and orthographically familiar) or infrequent (two conditions: orthographically familiar, orthographically unfamiliar). First-pass reading times showed effects of word frequency for both reading and scanning, with no interactions between word characteristics and task. Therefore, in contrast to the task of searching for a single specific word (Rayner & Fischer, 1996), there are immediate and localised influences of lexical processing when scanning for a specific topic, indicating that early word recognition processes are similar during reading and topic scanning. In contrast, there were interactions for later measures, with larger effects of word frequency during reading than scanning, indicating that reading goals can modulate later processes such as the integration of words into sentence context. Additional analyses of the distribution of first-pass single fixation durations indicate that first-pass fixations of all durations were shortened during scanning compared to reading, and reading for comprehension produced a larger subset of longer first-pass fixations compared to scanning. Implications for the nature of word recognition and eye movement control are discussed.

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Section: Later Sentence Processing (Re-reading): Implications For Eyementioning

confidence: 99%

Eye movements during reading and topic scanning: Effects of word frequency.

White¹,

Warrington²,

McGowan³

et al. 2015

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Perfor

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Researchers interested in how students understood narrative text structures (Stein & Glenn, 1979) examined recall using the elements of story (i.e., character, setting, goal, problem, events, and resolution). Other researchers interested in causal connections among segments of text broke sentences into clauses consisting of a main verb (Kendeou & van den Broek, 2005;Magliano, Trabasso, & Graesser, 1999;van den Broek, Lorch, Linderholm, & Gustafson, 2001). …”

Section: Coding Units Of Think-alouds and Recall Statementsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Van den Broek, Lorch, Linderholm, and Gustafson (2001) examined the effects of readers' purpose on inferential recall of expository text using Trabasso and Magliano's (1996a) inference categorization system. College students instructed to read expository text either to prepare for an essay exam or for the purpose of entertainment made significantly more explanatory and predictive inferences in the study condition and more associative inferences in the entertainment condition.…”

Section: Coding Types Of Inferencesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Thinking Aloud in Expository Text: Processes and Outcomes

Caldwell

Leslie

2010

Journal of Literacy Research

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This study examines three questions: What kinds of think-aloud statements, in particular what kinds of inferences, are made by middle school students while reading expository text? Does thinking aloud affect comprehension as measured by recall and answers to questions? Does thinking aloud add value to the assessment of comprehension beyond what is learned through recall and question answering? Sixty-eight middle-school students read expository texts and thought aloud on one segment and did not think aloud on another segment. After completing each segment, the students recalled the texts and answered comprehension questions. The content of think-alouds and recall was examined using Trabasso and Magliano's (1996a) clausal coding scheme and inferences were differentiated as explanatory, predictive or associative. Students primarily paraphrased the text as they thought aloud and made associative inferences using text information. Thinking aloud was associated with more associative inferences in recall, which correlated negatively with the ability to answer comprehension questions. The content of think-alouds may provide a more sensitive picture of readers' processing than unaided recall or answers to questions.

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“…This array of reference values, in turn, helps to determine the reader's allocation policy (i.e., effort towards computations needed to represent language at these different levels), which is implemented so as to reduce the discrepancy between the perceived levels of coherence and the reference values. Evidence suggests that cognitive performance, and reading in particular, is driven by cognitive goals (e.g., acquisition of information, achieving set amount of learning; van den Broek et al, 2001), social goals (e.g., reading to engage in social activities; Adams, Smith, Pasupathi, & Vitolo, 2002), and emotional goals (e.g., ludic reading; see Nell, 1988). The reader's goal, then, plays a vital role in setting the reference values, driving the self-regulatory mechanisms governing the comprehension of discourse and the creation of multidimensional representations of text.…”

Section: Self-regulated Language Processingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The basic unit of this model is the "negative feedback loop," as described by Scheier (1998, 2000), who conceptualize self-regulation as any behavior that aligns the perceived current state of the system with the desired state ("reference value"). Evidence from their research suggests that individuals will work to reduce discrepancy between the perceived current state and the reference value, and this engenders positive affect and the experience of success (and, as in Metcalf and Kornell's (2005) model, continued effort toward learning).One important aspect to consider within these models, then, is the degree to which selfregulation is driven by factors that define the reference values (or "standards of coherence"; van den Broek, Lorch, Linderholm & Gustafson, 2001), such as the goal of the reader. A key assumption of the SRLP model is that cognitive, social, and emotional goals differentially contribute to the relative levels of the reference values for linguistic computations at different levels of analysis (i.e., word, textbase, and discourse-level).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Adult age differences in the effects of goals on self-regulated sentence processing.

Stine‐Morrow¹,

Shake²,

Miles³

et al. 2006

Psychology and Aging

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We examined age differences in the allocation of effort when reading text for either high levels of recall accuracy or high levels of efficiency. Older and younger adults read a series of sentences, making judgments of learning before recalling the information they had studied. Older adults showed less sensitivity than the young to the accuracy goal in terms of both reading time allocation and memory performance. Memory monitoring (i.e., the correspondence between actual and perceived learning) and differential allocation of effort to unlearned items were age-equivalent, so that age differences in goal adherence were not attributable to these factors. However, comparison with data from a judgment task neutral with respect to memory monitoring showed that learning gains among the old across trial were reduced relative to young by memory monitoring, suggesting that active memory monitoring may be resource-consuming for older learners. Regression analysis was used to show that age differences in the responsiveness to (cognitive/information-acquisition) goals could be accounted for, in part, by independent contributions from working memory and memory selfefficacy. Our data suggest that both processing capacity ("what you have") and beliefs ("knowing you can do it") can contribute to individual differences in engaging resources ("what you do") to effectively learn novel content from text.Age-graded declines in fluid abilities (e.g., working memory capacity, attentional processes, processing speed) can impact the outcomes of reading, most notably memory for the information in the text that was read (Johnson, 2003;Wingfield & Stine-Morrow, 2000). Poor discourse memory among older adults is often attributed to age-graded changes in processing efficiency (e.g., Hartley, Stojack, Mushaney, Annon, & Lee, 1994;Stine & Hindman, 1994), resulting in a degradation in the strength or fidelity of the text representation garnered from time allocated to the task. The effects of this decrease in processing efficiency on recall performance may be exacerbated by a neglect in the allocation of attentional resources to overcome changes in cognitive ability (Ratner, Schell, Crimmins, Mittelman, & Baldinelli, 1987;Stine-Morrow, Miller, & Leno, 2001;Stine-Morrow, Ryan, & Leonard, 2000;Zabrucky & Moore, 1994), essentially a self-regulatory phenomenon in which reading strategies do not fully accommodate to age-graded change in capacity.This study was motivated by the desire to understand why this accommodation may not occur. We considered the viability of three (not mutually exclusive) explanations. First, it could be that older readers' reduced working memory capacity impairs the executive control of selfregulatory processing (e.g., Thiede & Dunlosky, 1999). Second, it could be that fundamental components of metacognitive control (e.g., the ability to monitor the current status of memory and allocate effort appropriately) are compromised with age (e.g., Hertzog & Dunlosky, 2004). Finally, it could be that age-related change in motiv...

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The effects of readers’ goals on inference generation and memory for texts

Cited by 315 publications

References 33 publications

Eye movements during reading and topic scanning: Effects of word frequency.

Eye movements during reading and topic scanning: Effects of word frequency.

Thinking Aloud in Expository Text: Processes and Outcomes

Adult age differences in the effects of goals on self-regulated sentence processing.

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