This volume presents in-depth investigations of the processes of meaning-making during reading at both local (discourse) and global (general knowledge) levels. It considerably extends our knowledge of how mental representations are constructed and updated during reading. The book also provides insight into the process of representation construction by using online measures and relating this process with final memory representations; provides detailed models of these processes; pays attention to the coordination of multiple representations constructed; focuses on the monitoring and updating of mental representations; and applies all this knowledge to richer and more complicated texts than are often used in laboratories.

This volume presents in-depth investigations of the processes of meaning-making during reading at both local (discourse) and global (general knowledge) levels. It will be of theoretical and practical interest to cognitive scientists & reading researchers

Inferencing is defined as 'the act of deriving logical conclusions from premises known or assumed to be true', and it is one of the most important processes necessary for successful comprehension during reading. This volume features contributions by distinguished researchers in cognitive psychology, educational psychology, and neuroscience on topics central to our understanding of the inferential process during reading. The chapters cover aspects of inferencing that range from the fundamental bottom-up processes that form the basis for an inference to occur, to the more strategic processes that transpire when a reader is engaged in literary understanding of a text. Basic activation mechanisms, word-level inferencing, methodological considerations, inference validation, causal inferencing, emotion, development of inferences processes as a skill, embodiment, contributions from neuroscience, and applications to naturalistic text are all covered as well as expository text, online learning materials, and literary immersion.

First Published in 1995. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

What is text understanding? It is the dynamic process of constructing coherent representations and inferences at multiple levels of text and context, within the bottleneck of a limited-capacity working memory. The field of text and discourse has advanced to the point where researchers have developed sophisticated models of comprehension, and identified the particular assumptions that underlie comprehension mechanisms in precise analytical or mathematical detail. The models offer a priori predictions about thought and behavior, not merely ad hoc descriptions of data. Indeed, the field has evolved to a mature science. The contributors to this volume collectively cover the major models of comprehension in the field of text and discourse. Other books are either narrow -- covering only a single theoretical framework -- or do not focus on systematic modeling efforts. In addition, this book focuses on deep levels of understanding rather than language codes, syntax, and other shallower levels of text analysis. As such, it provides readers with up-to-date information on current psychological models specified in quantitative or analytical detail.

The topic of this book is mental representation, a theoretical concept that lies at the core of cognitive science. Together with the idea that thinking is analogous to computational processing, this concept is responsible for the "cognitive turn" in the sciences of the mind and brain since the 1950s. Conceiving of cognitive processes (such as perception, reasoning, and motor control) as consisting of the manipulation of contentful vehicles that represent the world has led to tremendous empirical advancements in our explanations of behaviour. Perhaps the most famous discovery that explains behavior by appealing to the notion of mental representations was the discovery of 'place' cells that underlie spatial navigation and positioning, which earned researchers John O'Keefe, May-Britt Moser, and Edvard I. Moser a joint Nobel Prize in 2014. And yet, despite the empirical importance of the concept, there is no agreed definition or theoretical understanding of mental representation. This book constitutes a state-of-the-art overview on the topic of mental representation, assembling some of the leading experts in the field and allowing them to engage in meaningful exchanges over some of the most contentious questions. The collection gathers both proponents and critics of the notion, making room for debates dealing with the theoretical and ontological status of representations, the possibility of formulating a general account of mental representation which would fit our best explanatory practices, and the possibility of delivering such an account in fully naturalistic terms. Some contributors explore the relation between mutually incompatible notions of mental representation, stemming from the different disciplines composing the cognitive sciences (such as neuroscience, psychology, and computer science). Others question the ontological status and explanatory usefulness of the notion. And finally, some try to sketch a general theory of mental representations that could face the challenges outlined in the more critical chapters of the volume.

This volume's goal is to provide readers with up-to-date information on the research and theory of scientific text comprehension. It is widely acknowledged that the comprehension of science and technological artifacts is very difficult for both children and adults. The material is conceptually complex, there is very little background knowledge for most individuals, and the materials are often poorly written. Therefore, it is no surprise that students are turned off from learning science and technology. Given these challenges, it is important to design scientific text in a fashion that fits the cognitive constraints of the learner. The enterprise of textbook design needs to be effectively integrated with research in discourse processing, educational technology, and cognitive science. This book takes a major step in promoting such an integration. This volume: *provides an important integration of research and theory with theoretical, methodological, and educational applications; *includes a number of chapters that cover how science text information affects mental representations and strategies; *introduces important suggestions about how text design and new technologies can be thought of as pedagogical features; and *establishes academic text taxonomies and a consensus of the criteria to organize inferences and other mental mechanisms.