Contextual knowledge during encoding influences sentence recognition.

Abstract

The influence of appropriate contextual knowledge on the encoding of sentences was examined. Subjects read and were later asked to recognize sentences from Bransford and Johnson's (1972) passages. Subjects were informed of the passage title prior to encoding, prior to testing, or not at all. In Experiment 1, title availability during encoding significantly increased both recognition of target sentences and rejection of distractor sentences. Providing the title immediately prior to testing did not improve performance over the no-title condition. In a second experiment, performance in a title-before condition also exceeded performance in a no-title condition, even though distractor sentences were not included in the recognition test. Thus it appears that awareness of context during encoding enables subjects to engage in unique encoding processes which benefit recognition as well as recall memory.Research in human memory over the past 15 years has repeatedly demonstrated that the presence of appropriate contextual information during encoding facilitates sentence memory (Bransford & Johnson, 1972;Dooling & Lachman, 1971;Schustack & Anderson, 1979). The specific role that contextual information plays in aiding memory is not universally agreed on however. One widely held view is that prior contextual knowledge enables subjects to perform encoding operations which would not otherwise be carried out (Bransford & Johnson, 1972). These operations are assumed to lead to a unique and elaborated encoding of the test material which allows it to be more easily retrieved. Alba, Alexander, Hasher, and Caniglia (1981) offer an alternative to this "encoding" explanation. These authors point out that contextual information may aid recall performance simply by providing a retrieval cue. During retrieval contextual information may serve to link one sentence to the next, thereby facilitating recall without playing a major role in determining what has been encoded from each individual sentence.We wish to acknowledge Jani Gabriel Byrne for her help in constructing distractor sentences for Experiment I.Computing services were provided by the Computer Science Center of the University of Maryland.

Spacing judgments as an index of integration from context-induced relational processing: Implications for the free recall of ambiguous prose passages

“…The applicability of a relational processing account for the effect of a title on memory of ambiguous passages has been raised by others (e.g., Einstein et al, 1984;Summers et al, 1985). Our studies provide supporting evidence.…”

“…Einstein and Hunt (1980), in addressing the inadequacies of the concept of elaboration, have noted that it is useful to specifywhether elaborationinvolvesassociating semantic or episodic knowledge with a to-be-remembered item. The terms item-specific and relational processing were introduced to underscore the importance of this distinction (Einstein & Hunt, 1980), which has been used to explain various memory phenomena (Einstein et al, 1984;Hunt, Ausley, & Schultz, 1986;Maki, 1990;McDaniel, Einstein, Dunay, & Cobb, 1986;McDaniel, Einstein, & Lollis, 1988;Summers et al, 1985).…”

“…Presentation of a disambiguating title improves free recall of an ambiguous prose passage (Bransford & Johnson, 1972;Dooling & Lachman, 1971), but the underlying mechanism is not well understood (Alba, Alexander, Hasher, & Caniglia, 1981;Einstein, McDaniel, Bowers, & Stevens, 1984;Schwarz & Flammer, 1981;Summers, Horton, & Diehl, 1985). Evidence will be presented here that shows that a title promotes the integration of information from different sentences as well as from within each sentence of such passages and that this integration plays an important part in enhancing free recall of the passages.…”

“…According to this account, titleinformation willfacilitate relational processing and, thus, free recall of propositions in an ambiguous passage by inducing their interpretation as a meaningful whole (Kintsch & van Dijk, 1978). Recognition of these propositions willnot be strongly affected if equivalentproposition-specific processing occurs as subjects read the passages either with or without a title or if, for the subjects receiving a title, there is the kind oftradeoff between relational and item-specific processing that Summers et al (1985) propose.…”

Does text familiarity predict schema automation to reduce Working Memory Capacity constraints for enhanced reading comprehension? A study from Ghana

“…Many research studies suggest that background or contextual knowledge support reading comprehension and recall (Summers, Horton, & Diehl, 1985;Adams, Bell, & Perfetti, 1995;Rawson & Kintsch, 2002). Additionally, there is ample evidence supporting the notion that prior knowledge or previous knowledge that one has, is a predicting factor in reducing the time required for processing text, especially when measured in terms of reaction time or speed (Miller & Stine-Morrow, 1998;Wiley & Rayner, 2000;Kaakinen, Hyönä, & Keenan, 2003).…”