DISCOURSE COMPREHENSION
Arthur C. Graesser Department of Psychology, The University of Memphis, Memphis, Tennessee 38152
Keith K. Millis Department of Psychology, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, Illinois 60115
Rolf A. Zwaan Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida 32306
▪ Abstract The field of discourse processing has dissected many of the levels of representation that are constructed when individuals read or listen to connected discourse. These levels include the surface code, the propositional textbase, the referential situation model, the communication context, and the discourse genre. Discourse psychologists have developed models that specify how these levels are mentally represented and how they are dynamically built during comprehension. This chapter focuses on the meaning representations that are constructed when adults read written text, such as literary stories, technical expository text, and experimenter-generated “textoids.” Recent psychological models have attempted to account for the identification of referents of referring expressions (e.g. which person in the text does she refer to), the connection of explicit text segments, the establishment of local and global coherence, and the encoding of knowledge-based inferences.
The Neurocognition of Referential Ambiguity in Language Comprehension
Language and Linguistics Compass 2(4):603-630 (2008)
The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience
Perspectives on Psychological Science 3(3):173-192 (2008)
External and internal representations in the acquisition and use of knowledge: visualization effects on mental model construction
Instructional Science 36(3):175-190 (2008)
Neural Indicators of Inference Processes in Text Comprehension: An Event-related Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience Early Access(Early Access):080416092050067-15 (2008)
Auditing System Development: Constructing the Meaning of “Systematic and Rational” in the Context of Legacy Code Migration for Vendor Incentives
Journal of Information Systems 22(1):47-62 (2008)