@article{5997e453603d4abbabd7316aad0b005c,
title = "Comprehension and recall of text as a function of content variables",
abstract = "Short English texts, controlled for number of words and number of propositions, but differing in the number of word concepts in the text base (many versus few), were read and recalled immediately. Reading times were longer and recall was less for texts with many different word concepts than for texts with fewer word concepts. Superordinate propositions were recalled better than subordinate propositions and forgotten less when recall was delayed. The probability that a word concept was recalled increased as a function of both the number of repetitions of that concept in the text base and the number of repetitions of the corresponding word in the actual text. These results also obtained when subjects listened to the experimental paragraphs.",
author = "W. Kintsch and E. Kozminsky and Streby, {W. J.} and G. McKoon and Keenan, {J. M.}",
note = "Funding Information: Our knowledge about the processes involved in remembering prose lags far behind that about memory for word lists. Inability to represent explicitly the meaning of texts has probably been the restricting factor in this area. There is, of course, more to memory for text than just the memory for its meaning, with important concerns ranging from memory for surface features of a text to the pragmatic aspects of the communication act, but the problem of meaning is a fundamental one. Attempts to bypass this problem, by scoring recall protocols for verbatim recall or ill-defined idea units, have proven to be inadequate and, by their very lack of success, demonstrate the need for a theory-based approach. In recent years there have been several detailed proposals for the representation of meaning which might help psychological research out of this impasse. In the present paper a theory for the representation of meaning proposed by Kintsch (1974) will be used to explore some aspects of memory for text. The theory assumes that the basic units of meaning are propositions. Propositions are n-tuples of word concepts, one of which serves as a predieator, and the remaining ones as arguments, each fulfilling a unique semantic 1 This study was supported by grant MH-15872 from the National Institute of Mental Health to the first author.",
year = "1975",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1016/S0022-5371(75)80065-X",
language = "English",
volume = "14",
pages = "196--214",
journal = "Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior",
issn = "0022-5371",
publisher = "Academic Press Inc.",
number = "2",
}