Learning From Text

A framework is presented for distinguishing between two types of mental representations formed while reading a text: The textbase is a representation built in the process of comprehension, and a situation model is built to represent the situation described in the text. Two studies are reported that explore the relative contribution of each type of representation and their interaction during problem solving. In the first, grade school children solved easy and hard arithmetic word problems of three types: change, combine, and compare. When asked to recall, reconstruction of the problems occurred and was related to solution performance. Children tended to recall problems already solved on the basis of the situation model used in solutions and not by reproducing the original textbase. In the second study, college students formed mental maps while reading two types of texts describing the layout of a town: The survey text described the town in geographical terms, and the route version presented the same inform...