Comprehension and recall of text as a function of content variables

Reading for Meaning: The Influence of Reader Characteristics on Paragraph Understanding in Aphasia

PURPOSE

The study improves our understanding of the reading comprehension difficulties seen in people with aphasia. It investigates the influence of reader characteristics, including personal demographic variables, and linguistic and wider cognitive skills, on text comprehension.

METHOD

Seventy-five people with aphasia and 87 neurologically typical readers completed a test of paragraph comprehension. People with aphasia also completed background tests of language, attention, recognition memory, and executive functions. The influence of demographic variables (age, gender, and level of education) was analyzed separately in the group of people with aphasia and the typical readers using analyses of variance. In the people with aphasia, the relationship between paragraph comprehension and the language and cognitive tests was explored using correlational analyses.

RESULTS

In the typical readers, there was a significant effect of gender and level of education and a significant three-way interaction. For the people with aphasia, there were no significant effects of demographic variables. Significant positive correlations were found between performance on paragraph comprehension and each of the language tests and with tests of auditory attention, executive functions, and recognition memory for words.

CONCLUSIONS

In people with aphasia, the effects of demographic variables were overshadowed by the effect of their language difficulties. The association seen across language measures reflects the shared semantic representations across single-word, sentence, and text levels, across modalities. The study emphasizes the importance of attention, executive functions, and short-term memory in the comprehension of and memory for what we read. The contribution of both language difficulties and wider cognitive skills needs to be considered when planning intervention.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIAL

https://doi.org/10.23641/asha.24695451.

Spoken propositional idea density, a measure to help second language English speaking students: A multicentre cohort study

PURPOSE

Idea density has been shown to influence comprehension time for text in various populations. This study aims to explore the influence of spoken idea density on attainment in young, healthy subjects using demographic characteristics.

METHODS

Students watched two online lectures and answered 10 multiple choice questions on them. Students received one more idea dense (MID) and one less idea dense (LID) lecture on two different subjects.

RESULTS

Seventy-five students completed the study achieving a higher median score after a less idea-dense lecture (LID = 7(3), MID = 6(3), p = 0.04). Artificial neural network models revealed the first language as the main predictor of exam performance. The odds ratio (OR) of obtaining ≥70% after a more idea-dense lecture was six-time higher for the first language versus second language English speakers (OR = 5.963, 95% CI 1.080-32.911, p = 0.041). The odds ratio was not significant when receiving a less dense lecture (OR = 2.298, 95% CI 0.635-8.315, p = 0.205). Second-language speakers benefited from receiving a lower idea density, achieving a 10.8% score increase from high to low density, versus a 3.2% increase obtained by first language speakers.

CONCLUSIONS

The propositional idea density of lectures directly influences students' comprehension, and disproportionately for second language speakers; revealing the possibility of reduced spoken idea density in levelling the attainment differential between first and second language speakers.

Statistical Analysis of the Evolutive Effects of Language Development in the Resolution of Mathematical Problems in Primary School Education

For primary school students, the difficulty in solving mathematical problems is highly related to language capacity. A correct solution can only be achieved after being able to deal with different abstract concepts through several stages: comprehension, processing, symbolic representation and relation of the concepts with the right mathematical operations. A model linking the solution of the mathematical problems (PS) with the mental representation (MR) of the problem statement, while taking into account the level of the students (which has influence in the linguistic abilities), is presented in this study. Different statistical tools such as the Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA), ROC curves and logistic regression models have been applied. The relation between both variables has been proved, showing that the influence of MR in PS is similar in the different age groups, with linking models varying just in the constant term depending on the grade level. In addition, a cutoff in the mental representation test is provided in order to predict the student’s ability in problem resolution.

Effects of Written, Auditory, and Combined Modalities on Comprehension by People With Aphasia

Background People with aphasia experience reading challenges affecting participation in daily activities. Researchers have found combined auditory and written presentation modalities help people with aphasia comprehend contrived sentences and narratives, but less is known about the effects of combined modalities on functional, expository text comprehension. Aims This study's purpose was to examine comprehension accuracy, reviewing time, and modality preference of people with aphasia when presented with edited newspaper articles in written only, auditory only, and combined written and auditory modalities. Method and Procedure Twenty-eight adults with chronic aphasia read and/or listened to 36 passages. Following each passage, participants answered comprehension questions. Then, they ranked the modalities in accordance with preference and provided a rationale for their ranking. Outcomes and Results Comprehension accuracy was significantly better in the combined than auditory-only condition and in the written-only than auditory-only condition; the difference between combined and written-only conditions was not significant. Reviewing time differed significantly among conditions with the written-only condition taking longest and the auditory-only condition taking shortest. Most participants preferred the combined condition. Conclusions Access to combined modalities helps people with aphasia comprehend expository passages such as those found in newspapers better than auditory-only presentation. Furthermore, combined presentation decreases reviewing time from that needed for unsupported reading without compromising comprehension accuracy. Given that most participants preferred combined modality presentation, providing simultaneous auditory and written access to content through text-to-speech technology is a viable strategy when aphasia results in persistent reading challenges.

The origin of the centrality deficit in individuals with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder

INTRODUCTION

Studies have shown that skilled and disabled readers recall central ideas, which are important to the overall comprehension of the text, to a greater extent than peripheral, less important ideas after reading. However, readers with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) recall significantly fewer central ideas than skilled readers. The present study was designed to examine whether difficulties in identifying, attending, and/or retrieving central ideas underlie their centrality deficit.

METHOD

28 adult university students with ADHD and 27 control students read three expository texts (successively) to summarize their central ideas, while their eye-movements were recorded. After reading, the participants recalled, recognized, and estimated the centrality level of all text ideas, which were divided into central and peripheral based on pretest ratings.

RESULTS

The participants with ADHD recalled fewer central ideas than controls, although they recognized and estimated their centrality to the same extent as controls. Moreover, the participants with ADHD invested more time in rereading central ideas than peripheral ones, to a greater extent than controls.

CONCLUSIONS

The eye-movement data suggest that our university students with ADHD were aware of the reading task requirements, their difficulties, and the appropriate strategies for coping with them (i.e., rereading central ideas). More importantly, the present findings suggest that readers with ADHD have specific difficulty in retrieving central ideas that are available in their long-term memory. It supports the hypothesis that readers with ADHD establish fewer connections between text ideas during reading, and consequently benefit from a reduced number of retrieval cues after reading.

Understanding and Resolving Failures in Human-Robot Interaction: Literature Review and Model Development

While substantial effort has been invested in making robots more reliable, experience demonstrates that robots operating in unstructured environments are often challenged by frequent failures. Despite this, robots have not yet reached a level of design that allows effective management of faulty or unexpected behavior by untrained users. To understand why this may be the case, an in-depth literature review was done to explore when people perceive and resolve robot failures, how robots communicate failure, how failures influence people's perceptions and feelings toward robots, and how these effects can be mitigated. Fifty-two studies were identified relating to communicating failures and their causes, the influence of failures on human-robot interaction (HRI), and mitigating failures. Since little research has been done on these topics within the HRI community, insights from the fields of human computer interaction (HCI), human factors engineering, cognitive engineering and experimental psychology are presented and discussed. Based on the literature, we developed a model of information processing for robotic failures (Robot Failure Human Information Processing, RF-HIP), that guides the discussion of our findings. The model describes the way people perceive, process, and act on failures in human robot interaction. The model includes three main parts: (1) communicating failures, (2) perception and comprehension of failures, and (3) solving failures. Each part contains several stages, all influenced by contextual considerations and mitigation strategies. Several gaps in the literature have become evident as a result of this evaluation. More focus has been given to technical failures than interaction failures. Few studies focused on human errors, on communicating failures, or the cognitive, psychological, and social determinants that impact the design of mitigation strategies. By providing the stages of human information processing, RF-HIP can be used as a tool to promote the development of user-centered failure-handling strategies for HRIs.

Reading for Meaning: What Influences Paragraph Understanding in Aphasia?

PURPOSE

The current study investigated the effect of text variables including length, readability, propositional content, and type of information on the reading comprehension of people with aphasia.

METHOD

The performance of 75 people with aphasia was compared with 87 healthy, age-matched control participants. Reading comprehension was considered in terms of both accuracy in responding to questions tapping comprehension and reading time. Participants with aphasia (PWA) were divided into 2 groups (no reading impairment [PWA:NRI] and reading impairment [PWA:RI]) depending on whether their performance fell within the 5th percentile of control participants.

RESULTS

As groups, both PWA:NRI and PWA:RI differed significantly from control participants in terms of reading time and comprehension accuracy. PWA:NRI and PWA:RI differed from each other in terms of accuracy but not reading time. There was no significant effect of readability or propositional density on comprehension accuracy or reading time for any of the groups. There was a significant effect of length on reading time but not on comprehension accuracy. All groups found main ideas easier than details, stated information easier than inferred, and had particular difficulty with questions that required integration of information across paragraphs (gist).

CONCLUSIONS

Both accuracy of comprehension and reading speed need to be considered when characterizing reading difficulties in people with aphasia.

Learning New Information from Text: The Role of Prior Knowledge and Reading Ability

This study was designed to examine children's ability to learn new information from textual materials. It investigated the extent to which equally intelligent average and poor readers could recognize and recall information from expository texts. Two types of explicit and four types of inferential information were tested through recognition items. Subjects recognized more explicit than inferential information, although some inference types were more difficult than others to recognize. In addition, the study examined the extent to which acquisition of new information was a function of prior knowledge. The probability of a correct response was computed for three different prior knowledge conditions: 1) correct, 2) wrong, or 3) unknown. This permitted investigation of the effect of prior knowledge on subjects' acquisition of new information, as well as subjects' ability to correct old information. Prior knowledge was a powerful factor in reading comprehension for both average and poor readers. Both groups were better at acquiring totally new information than at correcting old information that was inaccurate. Even when prior knowledge was contradicted by the text, subjects used it, rather than textual information, for item recognition. Only when they did not, or believed they did not, possess the necessary prior knowledge did they resort to text—with a consequent improvement in recognition.

Inference at Comprehension: Fact or Artifact?

It is argued that previous research examining the presence of inferential elaborations in subject responses to memory tasks failed to determine the locus of inference production, (i.e., comprehension or retrieval). Three experiments are reported which were designed to make this determination. Each experiment used a different paradigm: (1) cued recall, (2) recognition, and (3) reaction time. The particular inferences of concern were instruments and/or consequences of action implied by the text. The results of the three experiments support the position that such inferences are made during comprehension.

The Effects of Coherence Explicitness on College Readers' Prose Comprehension

This study was designed to investigate the comparative effects of the ex-plicitness of two types of intersentential coherence relations on college students' comprehension. The explicitness of argument repetitions (AR) and connective concepts (CC) was varied across forms of an experimental passage resulting in the following four versions: explicit AR/implicit CC, explicit CC/implicit AR, both explicit, both implicit. College students were randomly assigned to one of the four versions. They silently read the passage and then immediately wrote their recall protocols. The results indicated that there were no significant differences among the groups at either the micro or macro levels in terms of reading times, amount recalled, or reading time/amount recalled ratios. There were, however, significant differences among the variances in the four groups. These results are discussed in terms of processing theories and in terms of possible individual difference variables.

The Frequency and Placement of Main Ideas in Children's Social Studies Textbooks: A Modified Replication of Braddock's Research on Topic Sentences

Braddock (1974) evaluated adult, expository reading materials for the frequency and placement of topic sentences (main ideas). Results indicated that relatively infrequently were main ideas directly stated in expository prose, and that paragraphs opened with a simple topic sentence only 13% of the time. This study was a modified replication of Braddock's research in which second-, fourth-, sixth-, and eighth-grade social studies textbooks were examined for the presence of explicit and implicit main ideas in paragraphs and short passages. Results were generally consistent with Braddock's findings on topic sentences: only 27% of all short passages that were examined in the social studies textbooks contained explicit passage main ideas; only 44% of all paragraphs contained explicit main ideas; and only 27% of all paragraphs opened with a directly-stated main idea. Implications for teachers, publishers, and reading researchers are discussed.

The Effect of Linguistic Cohesion on Prose Comprehension

This study examined the relationship between the number of cohesive ties in a passage, as defined by Halliday and Hasan (1976), and free and prompted recall scores. Two versions of a passage on gibbons were developed, with one version containing about twice as many ties as the other. Sixty college students participated; each read one of the passage-versions and then, either immediately or after 20 minutes, recorded his/her free recall and answered the prompted-recall questions. Though there were no differences between the treatment groups in terms of the numbers of micro-level propositions recalled, there were significant differences between these groups in terms of the theoretical reading time/100-propositions-recalled ratios, the numbers of reported macro-level statements, and the numbers of prompted-recall questions answered correctly in the delayed condition. These results support theories stressing the importance of coherent links in the comprehension process and suggest a new “readability” variable.

Topicalization and Memory for Main Ideas in Prose

Two experiments compared the effects of text structure and processing task requirements on memory for the main idea of a passage. College students identified as good or poor readers read a series of short passages in which an initial topic sentence was either present (topicalized) or absent (non-topicalized). In Experiment 1, all subjects were required to generate a title for each passage during reading and then were given a forced-choice recognition test for the main idea of each passage. The results showed that subjects performed better on topicalized passages than non-topicalized passages in both the title generation task and recognition memory. In the second experiment, subjects performed one of three meaningful processing tasks: rating comprehensibility of the passage, choosing the most appropriate main idea, or generating the main idea in their own words. There were no differences due to passage type for either processing task performance or recall of the main ideas, nor were good and poor readers differentially affected by passage type. Generating a main idea sentence following reading resulted in significantly better memory for both good and poor readers than did rating comprehensibility. These results support the position that generative activities facilitate learning of main ideas, even for passages with poor text structure. This finding is important in view of recent studies indicating that the majority of paragraphs written for both children and adults lack an explicit main idea sentence.

Adults' Text Recall: An Examination of the Age-Deficit Hypothesis

One-hundred and eight young and middle-aged adults studied two texts. The adults' vocabulary scores and their reported use of organizational strategies were correlated positively with their total recall of text information; their chronological ages, however, were correlated negatively with their recall. The relative contribution that each of these variables made to recall was assessed by means of a hierarchical regression analysis. Vocabulary and age were found to be particularly important variables. Vocabulary represented a text-learning resource that increased with age; it offset the age-related deficit in recall, but only in part. The findings provide support for the existence of a small, but significant, age-related deficit in text recall.

Understanding the centrality deficit: insight from foreign language learners

This study replicated and extended a phenomenon in the text memory literature referred to as the centrality deficit Miller & Keenan (Annals of Dyslexia 59:99-113, 2009). It examined how reading in a foreign language (L2) affects one's text representation and ability to recall the most important information. Readers recalled a greater proportion of central than of peripheral ideas, regardless of whether reading in their native language (L1) or a foreign language (L2). Nonetheless, the greatest deficit in participants' L2 recalls, as compared with L1 recalls, was on the central, rather than the peripheral, information. This centrality deficit appears to stem from resources being diverted from comprehension when readers have to devote more cognitive resources to lower level processes (e.g., L2 word identification and syntactic processing), because the deficit was most evident among readers who had lower L2 proficiency. Prior knowledge (PK) of the passage topic helped compensate for the centrality deficit. Readers with less L2 proficiency who did not have PK of the topic displayed a centrality deficit, relative to their L1 recall, but this deficit dissipated when they did possess PK.

What matters in scientific explanations: effects of elaboration and content

Given the breadth and depth of available information, determining which components of an explanation are most important is a crucial process for simplifying learning. Three experiments tested whether people believe that components of an explanation with more elaboration are more important. In Experiment 1, participants read separate and unstructured components that comprised explanations of real-world scientific phenomena, rated the components on their importance for understanding the explanations, and drew graphs depicting which components elaborated on which other components. Participants gave higher importance scores for components that they judged to be elaborated upon by other components. Experiment 2 demonstrated that experimentally increasing the amount of elaboration of a component increased the perceived importance of the elaborated component. Furthermore, Experiment 3 demonstrated that elaboration increases the importance of the elaborated information by providing insight into understanding the elaborated information; information that was too technical to provide insight into the elaborated component did not increase the importance of the elaborated component. While learning an explanation, people piece together the structure of elaboration relationships between components and use the insight provided by elaboration to identify important components.

Preoperative prediction of verbal episodic memory outcome using FMRI

This article focuses on an important neurosurgical problem for which functional imaging may have a role. Temporal lobe epilepsy surgery typically involves removal of much of the anterior medial temporal lobe, which is critical for encoding and retrieval of long-term episodic memories. Verbal episodic memory decline after left anterior temporal lobe resection occurs in 30% to 60% of such patients. Recent studies show that preoperative fMRI can predict the degree of verbal memory change that will occur, and that fMRI improves prediction accuracy when combined with other routine tests. The predictive power of fMRI appears to be at least as good as the Wada memory test, making fMRI a viable noninvasive alternative to the Wada for preoperative assessment.

Are the abstracts of high impact articles more readable? Investigating the evidence from top research institutions in the world

This paper examines the abstracts of the articles of the five most cited institutions in the world to determine their text reading level. Around 260,000 articles were analysed during 2000—2009 and the Flesch reading ease (RE) formula was applied to calculate the difficulty level of the abstracts according to the readability scores. The present study tries to: determine the abstracts reading level; discover the difference in the abstracts reading level among various disciplines; check the changes in the reading level of the abstracts during the examined years; test the correlation between the readability of the abstracts and their scientific impact. The results revealed that the texts of the abstracts are very difficult to read. Although this fact is true for all disciplines, disciplines can be divided into two groups based on their reading level, with some clearly less readable than others. No considerable change was observed in the readability scores of the abstracts over the examined years. Although the results of this research indicate that academics always write their abstracts in a difficult manner, these findings may result from the limitations in the readability formulas. Some researchers argue that these formulas ignore the readers’ prior knowledge, interest and motivation and, based on the findings, it is clear that academics do tolerate such apparently difficult texts (RE score).

Age differences in the effects of conceptual integration training on resource allocation in sentence processing

This research examined age differences in the accommodation of reading strategies as a consequence of explicit instruction in conceptual integration. In Experiment 1, young, middle-aged, and older adults read sentences for delayed recall using a moving-window method. Readers in an experimental group received instruction in making conceptual links during reading while readers in a control group were simply encouraged to allocate effort. Regression analysis to decompose word-by-word reading times in each condition isolated the time allocated to conceptual processing at the point in the text at which new concepts were introduced, as well as at clause and sentence boundaries. While younger adults responded to instructions by differentially allocating effort to sentence wrap-up, older adults allocated effort to intrasentence wrap-up and on new concepts as they were introduced, suggesting that older readers optimized their allocation of effort to linguistic computations for textbase construction within their processing capacity. Experiment 2 verified that conceptual integration training improved immediate recall among older readers as a consequence of engendering allocation to conceptual processing.

How word decoding skill impacts text memory: The centrality deficit and how domain knowledge can compensate

We examined text memory in children with word reading deficits to determine how these difficulties impact representations of text meaning. We show that even though children with poor word decoding recall more central than peripheral information, they show a significantly bigger deficit relative to controls on central than on peripheral information. We call this the centrality deficit and argue that it is the consequence of insufficient cognitive resources for connecting ideas together due to these children's resources being diverted from comprehension to word decoding. We investigated a possible compensatory mechanism for making these connections. Because a text representation is a synthesis of text information and a reader's prior knowledge, we hypothesized that having knowledge of the passage topic might reduce or eliminate the centrality deficit. Our results support this knowledge compensation hypothesis: The centrality deficit was evident when poor readers did not have prior knowledge, but was eliminated when they did. This presents an exciting avenue to pursue for possible remediation of reading comprehension in children with word identification difficulties.