580 Text Comprehension and Discourse Processing
the waiter who learned to use retrieval structures to memorize
the orders of his customers (Ericsson & Polson, 1988). How-
ever, what we all do naturally in text comprehension is func-
tionally equivalent to the memorial strategies employed in
these cases.
ASPECTS OF COMPREHENSION
Previously in this chapter, multiple facets of comprehension
have been alluded to, but not discussed. Comprehension is a
complex process. Multiple factors influence the comprehen-
sion of individuals; these factors include characteristics of
the text as well as those of the reader or comprehender. Fur-
ther, the goal of comprehension—whether memory for infor-
mation or true understanding of such—can be influenced by
factors both internal and external to the learner.
Memory for Text
Often when people talk about learning from a text, they speak
about recalling information from that text. It is not surprising
that many students equate learning from a text with memoriz-
ing its content, because traditional tests of learning have fo-
cused primarily on the recall of information. Multiple-choice,
fill-in-the blank, and true-or-false components from standard
educational tests typically require only surface memory for
the source information. However, there is a distinction to be
made between memory for a text and learning from a text (W.
Kintsch, 1998). Three levels of text representation have been
identified by van Dijk and Kintsch (1983):the surface level,
the textbase,andthe situation model.The surface level and
textbase relate to memory for a text, whereas the situation
model concerns learning from a text. Memory for a text re-
flects superficial recognition or recall of information, whereas
true learning from a text, as discussed in the next section, in-
volves integration of text material with prior knowledge.
Memory for a text can exist at several levels and typically
is demonstrated by recognition or recall tasks. Being able to
identify or verify exact passages, sentences, or words that ap-
peared in a text involves surface-level knowledge of the text.
This type of task involves recognition of previously read text
and is the most superficial type of text processing in that it re-
quires no understanding of the text’s meaning. One can mem-
orize a sentence or learn to recite a poem without ever really
understanding the contents (W. Kintsch, 1998). But when
most individuals attempt to memorize a text, they are not re-
ally trying to faithfully encode the surface-level representa-
tion of the text. Normally they are attempting to create a
textbase representation of the text.
Creation of a textbase differs from surface-level knowl-
edge of a text in that the textbase does not necessarily
represent the exact words or sentences used in the text.
Instead, the textbase contains a representation of the ideas or
propositions contained within a text. The information con-
tained in the textbase can be tied directly to the information
derived from the text, without any additional knowledge or
inferences that the reader might contribute to such informa-
tion (W. Kintsch, 1998). Thus, it is entirely possible for a
textbase representation to be incomplete or incoherent. This
is especially true because texts often are not completely ex-
plicit and require the reader to make inferences to connect
ideas in the text. A textbase representation, then, requires
readers to generate a faithful representation of the informa-
tion contained in a text, but does not require them to form
more than a superficial level of understanding about that in-
formation (McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, & Kintsch, 1996).
As previously noted, text memory generally is tested
using recognition and recall methods. Sentence recognition
tasks reveal that most individuals have surprisingly good
and long-lasting memory for what they read (W. Kintsch,
1998). Interestingly, various studies have found that the rec-
ognizability of a sentence is related to its importance to the
text: Major text propositions are recognized more easily
than minor, detail-oriented propositions (C. I. Walker &
Yekovich, 1984). Not only are the text-relevant characteris-
tics of the target sentence important, but characteristics of
the distractor sentences also influence the likelihood that a
reader will incorrectly “recognize” it as a sentence from the
text. Distractors that are more relevant to the reader’s repre-
sentation of the text tend to be confused with the actual text.
Paraphrases are most likely to be mistaken as original
text, followed by inferences, then topic-relevant distractors
and, finally, topic-irrelevant distractors (W. Kintsch, Welsch,
Schmalhofer, & Zimny, 1990). W. Kintsch et al. (1990)
not only identified the pattern by which distractors are con-
fused with original text, but also they analyzed the extent
to which different text representations—surface level,
textbase, or situation model (an integrated representation
of text information and background knowledge)—are nega-
tively affected by delay. Recognition tested before and after
a 4-day delay demonstrated no decline in recognition mem-
ory for the situation model, a substantial decline (50% loss
of strength) for the textbase, and a complete loss of surface
information.
Thus, recognition memory depends not only on the
strength of text representation formed during reading, but
also upon the type of representation formed and the degree to
which distractor sentences approach this representation. In
general, recognition memory is quite good and long lasting