Theoretical Issues in Reading Comprehension: Perspectives from Cognitive Psychology, Linguistics, Artificial Intelligence, and Education

Abstract

Research in cognitive psychology, linguistics, education and artificial intelligence -- the four disciplines that have the most direct application to an understanding of the mental processes in reading -- is presented in this multilevel work that attempts to provide a systematic and scientific basis for understanding and building a comprehensive theory of reading comprehension. The major focus is on understanding the processes involoved in the comprehension of written text. The underlying message in most of the contributions is the assumption that skilled reading comprehension requires a coordination of text with context in a way that goes far beyond simply chaining together the meanings of a string of decoded words.