Language Comprehension As Structure Building

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Psychology Press, Sep 5, 2013 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 304 pages
This book presents a new theoretical framework -- what Gernsbacher calls the Structure Building Framework -- for understanding language comprehension in particular, and cognitive processing in general. According to this framework, the goal in comprehending both linguistic and nonlinguistic materials is to build a coherent mental representation or "structure" of the information being comprehended. As such, the underlying processes and mechanisms of structure building are viewed as general, cognitive processes and mechanisms. The strength of the volume lies in its empirical detail: a thorough literature review and solid original data.

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Contents

1 INTRODUCTION
1
2 THE PROCESS OF LAYING A FOUNDATION
5
3 THE PROCESSES OF MAPPING AND SHIFTING
51
4 THE MECHANISMS OF SUPPRESSION AND ENHANCEMENT
87
5 INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES IN STRUCTURE BUILDING
167
6 CONCLUSIONS
221
REFERENCES
245
INDEX
277
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Morton Ann Gernsbacher

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