Episodically enhanced comprehension fluency.

Abstract

Fluent reading comprehension was explored in a series of experiments involving sentences presented in normal and inverted typography. Sentences read in a test phase had been read earlier in exactly the same form, or in versions that were created by (a) altering the word order within sentences to create randomly ordered word strings or (b) exchanging causally related clauses to form new meaningful sentences. Variation from exact repetition of word order or clause combination increased the time taken to read the test sentences and these effects were evident over retention intervals ranging from one day to four months. Varying word order across repeated presentations of a sentence was also shown to reduce reporting accuracy in a rapid serial reading task. These results support an episodic view of the basis for rereading fluency in which comprehension processes responsible for constructing and integrating propositions are automatically recruited and reapplied when a sentence is reread.Resume La facilite de comprehension de textes a fait l'objet d'une serie d'experiences dans lesquelles les sujets devaient lire des phrases dont la typographic etait tantot normale, tantot inversee. Les phrases presentees a l'etape d'essai avaient ete lues auparavant soit sous une forme identique, soit sous une nouvelle forme ou a) l'ordre des mots dans les phrases etait modifie de maniere a creer des suites de mots agences au hasard ou b) les propositions causales etaient combinees autrement pour creer de nouvelles phrases sensees. Lorsque l'ordre des mots ou l'agencement des propositions etait modifie par rapport a celui qui 6tait repete fidelement, le temps de lecture des phrases presentees a l'essai etait plus long, et cet effet se manifestait de facon evidente apres les intervalles de retention allant d'un jour a quatre mois. La presentation repetee d'une meme phrase dans laquelle l'ordre des mots etait modifie avait egalement pour effet de reduire 1'exactitude des reponses donnees pendant une tache de lecture rapide en serie. Les resultats obtenus temoignent des bases episodiques de la facilite de relecture ou les processus de comprehension responsables de la construction et de l'inte'gration des propositions sont automatiquement selectionnes et reactives lors de la relecture d'une phrase.

Perceptual and conceptual priming in a semantic reprocessing task

“…Consistent with the proposal by Carr et al (1989), it could be the activation or strengthening of lexical memory units. Alternatively, consistent with the findings of Levy et al (1993) and Masson (1993), the priming effects could depend on memory for specific conceptual processing components of the priming event, such as meaning comparison and decision.…”

“…As described earlier, Carr et al (1989) concluded that priming effects in rereading text were due to activation of lexical memory units. However, this conclusion has been countered by evidence of priming effects associated with passage comprehension processes rather than individual word reading (Levy et al, 1993;Levy & Kirsner, 1989;Masson, 1993).…”

“…As a whole, these studies suggest that rereading facilitation depends in part on memory at the message or proposition level of representation (Levy, Barnes, & Martin, 1993;Levy & Burns, 1990;Masson, 1993).…”

A context-dependent representation model for explaining text repetition effects

“…Reading two dissimilar texts should not lead to repetition effects because the second text cannot reinstate the episodic representation of the first text. Unlike abstract repetition effects, which are not based on memory for the text per se, episodic repetition effects are dependent on memory for the information in a text or the processes used to comprehend the text (Kolers, 1975(Kolers, , 1976Levy et al, 1995;Masson, 1995).…”

“…There is a generally accepted explanation for this repetition effect: Memory of the text formed during the first reading facilitates processing during the second reading. There is, however, intense debate regarding why and how memory facilitates rereading (e.g., Bowers, 2000;Carlson, Alejano, & Carr, 1991;Carr, Brown, & Charalambous, 1989;Levy & Burns, 1990;Levy et al, 1995;Masson, 1995;Tenpenny, 1995). The debate has been centered on whether text repetition effects are based on abstract or episodic text representations and how the reader may use such representations.…”