A key component of research on human sentence processing is to characterize the processing difficulty associated with the comprehension of words in context. Models that explain and predict this difficulty can be broadly divided into two kinds, expectation-based and memory-based. In this work, we present a new model of incremental sentence…

The rise of modern architecture styles has strongly impacted the younger generation globally in the current century. This research is designed to study the performance of working memory on understanding Lanna architecture with young adults at a large university in northern Thailand, that of Mae Fah Luang University in Chiang Rai Province,…

Purpose: This paper aims to examine the cognitive processes involved in answering survey questions. It also briefly discusses how the cognitive viewpoint has been challenged by other approaches (such as conversational analysis). Design/methodology/approach: The paper reviews the major components of the response process and summarizes work…

Most current models of sentence comprehension assume that the human parsing mechanism (HPM) algorithmically computes detailed syntactic representations as basis for extracting sentence meaning. These models share the assumption that the representations computed by the HPM accurately reflect the linguistic input. This assumption has been challenged…

This paper makes a reflection on the assessment of historical thinking in compulsory education. First, the article reflects on the type of knowledge that is being evaluated (memory or understanding). According to current thinking, assessment should meet the teaching aims set out by the teacher, it should be another means of monitoring and…

This study examined learning differences for students who were given instructor-provided examples during a lesson compared with student-generated examples. In an experiment, 348 students were exposed to an online lesson about fear appeals and were randomly assigned to either a condition where (a) examples of key concepts were provided by the…

According to the most widely accepted Cattell-Horn-Carroll (CHC) model of intelligence measurement, each subtest score of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Adults (3rd ed.; WAIS-III) should reflect both 1st- and 2nd-order factors (i.e., 4 or 5 broad abilities and 1 general factor). To disentangle the contribution of each factor, we applied a…

Three experiments examine whether a naturalistic reading task can induce long-lasting changes of syntactic patterns in memory. Judgment of grammatical acceptability is used as an indirect test of memory for sentences that are identical or only syntactically similar to those read earlier. In previous research (Luka & Barsalou, 2005) both sorts of…

We explored whether exposure to different kinds of comprehension tests during elementary years influenced metacomprehension accuracy among 7th and 8th graders. This research was conducted in a kindergarten through 8th grade charter school with an expeditionary learning curriculum. In literacy instruction, teachers emphasize reading for meaning and…

When people read narratives, they often need to update their situation models as the described events change. Previous research has shown little to no increases in reading times for spatial shifts but consistent increases for temporal shifts. On this basis, researchers have suggested that spatial updating does not regularly occur, whereas temporal…

According to multicomponent models (Oakhill & Cain, 2007a), text comprehension is a complex process that requires the processing of explicit (i.e., information presented in the text) and implicit information (i.e., information inferable from the text or from previous knowledge), and involves various components. This study investigated (a)…

This dissertation examines the cognitive processes individuals use when reading organic chemistry equations and factors that affect these processes, namely, visual complexity of chemical equations and participant characteristics (expertise, spatial ability, and working memory capacity). A six stage process model for the comprehension of organic…

This thesis aims to define and extend a line of computational models for text comprehension that are humanly plausible. Since natural language is human by nature, computational models of human language will always be just that--models. To the degree that they miss out on information that humans would tap into, they may be improved by considering…

This meta-analysis integrates 296 effect sizes reported in eye-tracking research on expertise differences in the comprehension of visualizations. Three theories were evaluated: Ericsson and Kintsch's ("Psychol Rev" 102:211-245, 1995) theory of long-term working memory, Haider and Frensch's ("J Exp Psychol Learn Mem Cognit" 25:172-190, 1999)…

The capacity to remember sequences is critical to many behaviors, such as navigation and communication. Adult humans readily recall the serial order of auditory items, and this ability is commonly understood to support, in part, the speech processing for language comprehension. Theories of short-term serial recall posit either use of absolute…