The Inferential Language Comprehension (iLC) Framework: Supporting Children's Comprehension of Visual Narratives

Abstract

We present an integrated theoretical framework guiding the use of visual narratives in educational settings. We focus specifically on the use of static and dynamic visual narratives to teach and assess inference skills in young children and discuss evidence to support the efficacy of this approach. In doing so, first we review the basis of the integrated framework, which builds on major findings of cognitive, developmental, and language research highlighting that (a) inference skills can be developed in non‐reading contexts using different media, (b) inference skills can transfer across different media, and (c) inference skills can be improved using questioning that includes scaffolding and specific feedback. Second, we review instructional and assessment approaches that align with the proposed framework; these approaches are designed to teach or assess inference making skills using visual narratives and interactive questioning. In this context, we discuss how these approaches leverage the unique affordances of static and dynamic visual narratives with respect to unit of meaning (by increasing opportunities to generate inferences), multimodality (by providing opportunities to generate inferences of higher complexity than text), and vocabulary/knowledge demands (by providing vocabulary/knowledge support), while also reviewing evidence for their usability, feasibility, and efficacy to improve educational outcomes. We conclude with important theoretical and practical questions about future work in this area.

Editors’ Introduction and Review: Visual Narrative Research: An Emerging Field in Cognitive Science

“…Finally, in discussing myths, we made the case that being a fluent reader of drawn sequential narratives requires exposure. In many cultures, children’s first exposure to reading is through multimodal visual narratives, and various works have suggested that visual narratives might be beneficial for literacy, language learning, and inferences (Kendeou et al, ). Yet, as discussed above, understanding of visual narratives themselves does not come “for free” with visual perception and event cognition, and requires a fluency developed with exposure and practice.…”

Dismantling the “Visual Ease Assumption:" A Review of Visual Narrative Processing in Clinical Populations

“…Whether written, drawn, or filmed, narratives require complex cognitive skills like processing narrative structure (Cohn, ; Cohn et al, ), segmenting a story into events (Cohn & Bender, ; Magliano, Kopp, McNerney, Radvansky, & Zacks, ), and constructing a mental model of the unfolding story (Magliano & Zacks, ; Zwaan & Radvansky, ). Like linguistic narratives, visual narratives require inference generation and the ability to “fill in the gap” between narrative events (Cohn, ; Cohn & Kutas, ; Cohn & Wittenberg, ; Magliano, Larson, Higgs, & Loschky, ; McCloud, ; see also Kendeou et al, ), which may be difficult for individuals with certain cognitive disorders.…”

“…For instance, developmental trajectories of sequential image understanding are concurrent with those of ToM development (Bornens, ; Cohn, ; Wellman, Cross, & Watson, ), creating issues if visual narratives are used to assess ToM in children. Yet few studies using visual narratives as stimuli have assessed participants’ proficiency with this medium (see also Kendeou et al, ). One potential tool for such an assessment is the Visual Language Fluency Index (VLFI), which estimates participants’ proficiency with reading and drawing comics.…”

“…Ultimately, more research is needed to evaluate the efficacy of interventions using visual narratives, particularly when these interventions are targeted at specific clinical populations. For instance, Kendeou et al () describe how visual narratives can be used to train domain‐general inference‐making skills. While such instructional techniques show promising results in improving language comprehension outcomes in children who struggle with reading comprehension, it remains to be seen whether these techniques are as effective in other populations such as ASD or SLI.…”

A starring role for inference in the neurocognition of visual narratives

“…Inference has been a primary focus of studies of discourse (McNamara and Magliano 2009), especially in research on how we understand visual narratives, like comics or picture stories (Cohn 2020;Loschky et al 2020;McCloud 1993;Saraceni 2016). Research on verbal narrative has often used visual narratives as stimuli, assuming them to involve or evoke similar inferential processing (Gernsbacher et al 1990;Loschky et al 2020;Magliano et al 2019), and visual narratives have even been posited as tools for bootstrapping verbal inferential abilities (Kendeou et al 2020). Yet, little research exists on the neurocognition of visual narrative inferencing itself.…”