Taking different perspectives on a story.

Abstract

College undergraduates read stories from one of two directed perspectives or no directed perspective. An idea's significance in terms of a given perspective determined whether the idea would be learned and, independently, whether it could be recalled a week later. These results were interpreted to mean that alternative high-level schemata can provide frameworks for assimilating a text, perhaps by providing "slots" for different types of information. Later the schema from which an instantiated memorial representation of a passage was constructed may furnish the retrieval plan for recovery of detailed information.Taking Different Perspectives on a Story 2 Taking Different Perspectives on a Story People are more likely to learn and remember the important than the unimportant elements of a prose passage. That this is so was known by the turn of the century (Binet & Henri, 1894; Thieman & Brewer, in press) and there have been increasingly rigorous demonstrations since that time (Newman, 1939;Gomulicki, 1956;Johnson, 1970;Meyer & McConkie, 1973; Bower, in press). An exciting development of the last few years has been the explication of the notion of importance in terms of theories of text structure. Our concern is that in their less cautious moments theorists have permitted the inference that the structural importance of an element in a passage is an invariant that follows from the logic of a propositional analysis (Kintsch, 1974, p. 137) or a text grammar (Meyer, 1975, p. 184; Frederikson, 1975,pp. 160-162). This is an inference that ought to be resisted.More significant than the structure in some sense contained in a text, is the structure the reader imposes on the text. These structures will be called schemata following Piaget (1936), Bartlett (1932), and others (Kant, 1781;Anderson, 1976;Rumelhart & Ortony, 1976). Later in the paper schema theory will be discussed in more detail. For the moment, it is enough to say that imposing a schema on a text simply means viewing the text from a certain perspective.A text will be incomprehensible if a reader is unable to discover a schema that subsumes it. Bransford and Johnson (1973) The procedure is actually quite simple. First you arrange things into different groups. Of course, one pile may be sufficient depending on how much there is to do. If you have to go somewhere else due to lack of facilities that is the next step, otherwise you are pretty well set. It is important not to overdo things. That is, it is better to do too few things at once than too many.In the short run this may not seem important but complications can easily arise. A mistake can be expensive as well. At first the whole procedure will seem complicated. Soon, however, it will become just another facet of life. It is difficult to foresee any end to the necessity for this task in the immediate future, but then one never can tell. After the procedure is completed one arranges the materials into different groups again. Then they can be put into their appropriate places.Eventually they will...

Reading in perspective: What real cops and pretend burglars look for in a story.

“…Thus, we know from previous research (e.g., Bower, Black, & Turner, 1979;Pichert & Anderson, 1977) that information related to a reader's engaged schema is better learned and recalled than information not related to the schema. Few attempts have been made to observe or measure process variables directly.…”

“…Specifically, we intend to test two hypotheses of how schemata enhance the learning and recall of prose material, selective attention and slotfilling (Pichert & Anderson, 1977). The selective attention hypothesis suggests that as people read, they identify text elements as important or unimportant on the basis of an engaged, operative or subsuming schema.…”

“…Readers' existing knowledge structures (their schemata) influence the comprehension, recall, and perceived importance of elements that make up a text (e.g., Pichert & Anderson, 1977). In this study, two explanations of how schemata might function during encoding were tested.…”

Schema-Directed Processes in Language Comprehension

“…The device in a second, parallel line of research was to ask subjects to read a narrative from alternative points of view which, presumably, caused them to invoke different schemata. Pichert and Anderson (1977) asked subjects to read stories from one of two perspectives or no directed perspective. One of the stories ostensibly was about what two boys do when skipping school.…”

Processus de compréhension de discours informatifs à l’oral et à l’écrit

“…s'informer, se distraire, se documenter, etc.). Pichert et Anderson (1977) ont démontré l'importance de considérer le but fonctionnel vis-à-vis du rappel. Leur expérimentation a utilisé un texte qui décrivait une maison.…”