Memory Representations Of Text
Walter Kintsch · 2024
The purpose of this contribution is to explore the processes involved in text memory and, at the same time, to emphasize what appears to me a striking continuity between memory for word lists and memory for text. The parallels that I want to point out between list learning data and the results of research with texts are potentially important: if they are, indeed, indicators of common processes and not merely superficial similarities, the study of texts can be built upon the solid base of facts and the relatively advanced theoretical understanding which exist in list learning research. This, I claim, would be a vast improvement over the alternative accepted by disconcertingly many psycholinguists today: that the theory and data of “verbal learning” are essentially irrelevant to the study of memory and comprehension of sentences and texts.