Walter Kintsch
Biographic Data
| ID | 738874 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Walter Kintsch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Walter |
| FAMILY NAME | Kintsch |
| SIGNATURE | KINTSCH W |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Colorado Boulder |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 38 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 213 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 37 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1957 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 8 |
A history of psychology as it happened to me
Meaning in Context
Text Comprehension and Discourse Processing
This chapter examines text comprehension and discourse processing from a cognitive standpoint, exploring research evidence that forms the basis for what is known about how individuals learn from text and discourse. First, the history of text comprehension and discourse analysis is discussed. Next, basic processes of memory are discussed, focusing on the influence of short- and long-term memory on comprehension. The chapter then examines how aspec…
Self-Regulation and Link Selection Strategies in Hypertext
This article explores the role of self-regulation in strategies that readers use to decide the order in which to read the different sections of a hypertext. This study explored 3 main strategies for link selection based on (a) link screen position, (b) link interest, and (c) the semantic relation of a link with the section just read. This study followed Winne's (1995, 2001) model of self-regulated learning to try to explain why some readers selec…
Handbook of Latent Semantic Analysis
Reading Strategies and Hypertext Comprehension
The literature on assessing the cognitive processes involved in hypertext comprehen-sion during the past 15 years has yielded contradictory results. In this article we ex-plore a possible factor affecting this situation, mainly the fact that previous works did not control for the potential effects on comprehension of reading strategies in hyper-text. In Experiment 1, results showed that reading strategies selectively affect the textbase and the s…
An Overview of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Effects in Comprehension
The construction-integration model describes the interplay between top-down and bottom-up processes in comprehension: how top-down processes guide comprehension and how bottom-up processes constrain it. At every level of analysis-from basic linguistic processing to knowledge integration-both top-down and bottom-up processes jointly determine the nature of the mental representations formed in comprehension
An Overview of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Effects in Comprehension
Exploring Encoding and Retrieval Effects of Background Information on Text Memory
Two experiments were conducted (a) to evaluate how providing background infor-mation at test may benefit retrieval and (b) to further examine how providing back-ground information prior to study influences encoding. Half of the participants read background information prior to study, and the other half did not. In each group, half were presented with background information at test. Background information at test improved recall for those who did …
Metaphor Comprehension
Comprehension difficulty was rated for metaphors of the form Noun1 -is-a Noun2; in addition, participants completed frames of the form Noun1 -is-________ with their literal interpretation of the metaphor. Metaphor comprehension was simulated with a computational model based on Latent Semantic Analysis. The model matched participants' interpretations for both easy and difficult metaphors. When interpreting easy metaphors, both the participants and…
Text Retrieval
An analysis of text retrieval is advanced, which couples the comprehension principles of construction-integration (Kintsch, 1988, 1998) with the global-match assumptions of contemporary memory theory. The analysis had three components: First, following the tenets of construction-integration, comprehension yields a multilevel (surface, propositional, and situation model) long-term memory representation of the text. Second, the familiarity of a mem…
Metaphor comprehension
Shortcomings of generic retrieval structures with slots of the type that Gobet (1993) proposed and modelled
The measurement of textual coherence with latent semantic analysis
Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is used as a technique for measuring the coherence of texts. By comparing the vectors for 2 adjoining segments of text in a high‐dimensional semantic space, the method provides a characterization of the degree of semantic relatedness between the segments. We illustrate the approach for predicting coherence through reanalyzing sets of texts from 2 studies that manipulated the coherence of texts and assessed readers’ …
Learning from text
This study examines the hypothesis that the ability of a reader to learn from text depends on the match between the background knowledge of the reader and the difficulty of the text information. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a statistical technique that represents the content of a document as a vector in high‐dimensional semantic space based on a large text corpus, is used to predict how much readers will learn from texts based on the estimated…
Using latent semantic analysis to assess knowledge
In another article (Wolfe et al., 1998/this issue) we showed how Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) can be used to assess student knowledge—how essays can be graded by LSA and how LSA can match students with appropriate instructional texts. We did this by comparing an essay written by a student with one or more target instructional texts in terms of the cosine between the vector representation of the student's essay and the instructional text in ques…
Are Good Texts Always Better? Interactions of Text Coherence, Background Knowledge, and Levels of Understanding in Learning From Text
Two experiments, theoretically motivated by the construction-integration model of text comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), investigated the role of text coherence in the comprehension of science texts. In Experiment 1, junior high school students' comprehension of one of three versions of a biology text was examined via free recall, written questions, and a key-word sorting task. This study demonstrates advantages for globally coherent text and for…
Learning from texts
Two experiments, theoretically motivated by the construction‐integration model of comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), investigated effects of prior knowledge on learning from high‐ and low‐coherence history texts. In Experiment 1, participants’ comprehension was examined through free recall, multiple‐choice questions, and a keyword sorting task. An advantage was found for the high‐coherence text on recall and multiple‐choice questions. However, hig…
Remembering
In 1932, Cambridge University Press published Remembering, by psychologist, Frederic Bartlett. The landmark book described fascinating studies of memory and presented the theory of schema which informs much of cognitive science and psychology today. In Bartlett's most famous experiment, he had subjects read a Native American story about ghosts and had them retell the tale later. Because their background was so different from the cultural context …
Long-term working memory.
To account for the large demands on working memory during text comprehension and expert performance, the traditional models of working memory involving temporary storage must be extended to include working memory based on storage in long-term memory. In the proposed theoretical framework cognitive processes are viewed as a sequence of stable states representing end products of processing. In skilled activities, acquired memory skills allow these …
Spatial situation models and text comprehension
Three experiments examined how readers inferred spatial information that was relevant to a story character's movements through a previously memorized layout of a fictional building relative to various tasks. This study also examined how inference measures were related to spatial imagery and reading comprehension ability. Replicating the spatial separation effect reported by Morrow, Greenspan, and Bower (1987), probed objects were responded to fas…
Text comprehension, memory, and learning
People are often able to reproduce a text quite well but are unable to use the information in the text for other purposes. Factors that help people to reproduce a text have been studied for some time. This article explores ways that enable people to learn from texts. Content overlap between a text and the reader's prior knowledge is identified as one factor, and methods are proposed to identify whether a text is suitable for readers with given ba…
Information accretion and reduction in text processing
The Role of Knowledge in Discourse Comprehension
Sentence memory
Learning from texts
Two experiments, theoretically motivated by the construction‐integration model of comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), investigated effects of prior knowledge on learning from high‐ and low‐coherence history texts. In Experiment 1, participants’ comprehension was examined through free recall, multiple‐choice questions, and a keyword sorting task. An advantage was found for the high‐coherence text on recall and multiple‐choice questions. However, hig…
Learning from text, levels of comprehension, or
The role of culture‐specific schemata in the comprehension and recall of stories∗
Experiment I shows that readers write better summaries of stories for which they have an appropriate schema than for stories for which they lack a schema, and that this effect is related to the overall organization of the story and does not lie at the level of single sentences. Raters who judged the quality of the summaries found summaries from stories that corresponded to a familiar story schema more informative than those from stories for which…
The measurement of textual coherence with latent semantic analysis
Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is used as a technique for measuring the coherence of texts. By comparing the vectors for 2 adjoining segments of text in a high‐dimensional semantic space, the method provides a characterization of the degree of semantic relatedness between the segments. We illustrate the approach for predicting coherence through reanalyzing sets of texts from 2 studies that manipulated the coherence of texts and assessed readers’ …
Information accretion and reduction in text processing
Strategies of Discourse Comprehension
Text Retrieval
An analysis of text retrieval is advanced, which couples the comprehension principles of construction-integration (Kintsch, 1988, 1998) with the global-match assumptions of contemporary memory theory. The analysis had three components: First, following the tenets of construction-integration, comprehension yields a multilevel (surface, propositional, and situation model) long-term memory representation of the text. Second, the familiarity of a mem…
Learning from text
This study examines the hypothesis that the ability of a reader to learn from text depends on the match between the background knowledge of the reader and the difficulty of the text information. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a statistical technique that represents the content of a document as a vector in high‐dimensional semantic space based on a large text corpus, is used to predict how much readers will learn from texts based on the estimated…
Spatial situation models and text comprehension
Three experiments examined how readers inferred spatial information that was relevant to a story character's movements through a previously memorized layout of a fictional building relative to various tasks. This study also examined how inference measures were related to spatial imagery and reading comprehension ability. Replicating the spatial separation effect reported by Morrow, Greenspan, and Bower (1987), probed objects were responded to fas…
An Overview of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Effects in Comprehension
Reading Strategies and Hypertext Comprehension
The literature on assessing the cognitive processes involved in hypertext comprehen-sion during the past 15 years has yielded contradictory results. In this article we ex-plore a possible factor affecting this situation, mainly the fact that previous works did not control for the potential effects on comprehension of reading strategies in hyper-text. In Experiment 1, results showed that reading strategies selectively affect the textbase and the s…
An Overview of Top-Down and Bottom-Up Effects in Comprehension
The construction-integration model describes the interplay between top-down and bottom-up processes in comprehension: how top-down processes guide comprehension and how bottom-up processes constrain it. At every level of analysis-from basic linguistic processing to knowledge integration-both top-down and bottom-up processes jointly determine the nature of the mental representations formed in comprehension
Using latent semantic analysis to assess knowledge
In another article (Wolfe et al., 1998/this issue) we showed how Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) can be used to assess student knowledge—how essays can be graded by LSA and how LSA can match students with appropriate instructional texts. We did this by comparing an essay written by a student with one or more target instructional texts in terms of the cosine between the vector representation of the student's essay and the instructional text in ques…
Self-Regulation and Link Selection Strategies in Hypertext
This article explores the role of self-regulation in strategies that readers use to decide the order in which to read the different sections of a hypertext. This study explored 3 main strategies for link selection based on (a) link screen position, (b) link interest, and (c) the semantic relation of a link with the section just read. This study followed Winne's (1995, 2001) model of self-regulated learning to try to explain why some readers selec…
A history of psychology as it happened to me
Exploring Encoding and Retrieval Effects of Background Information on Text Memory
Two experiments were conducted (a) to evaluate how providing background infor-mation at test may benefit retrieval and (b) to further examine how providing back-ground information prior to study influences encoding. Half of the participants read background information prior to study, and the other half did not. In each group, half were presented with background information at test. Background information at test improved recall for those who did …
Shortcomings of generic retrieval structures with slots of the type that Gobet (1993) proposed and modelled
Strategies of Discourse Comprehension
rhetorical schemata to be discussed in what follows. Finally, schemata are descriptions, not definitions. The 'bus' schema contains information that is nor
Habit Reversal as a Function of Length of Partial Delay of Reinforcement
While the effects of delay of reinforcement on response acquisition are well known ( 6 ) , there is comparatively little information regarding its effects upon resistance to extinction. Recently, Fehrer ( 3 ) has demonstrated that a constant delay of reinforcement produces an instrumental response that is more resistant to extinction than when reward is immediately forthcoming. In the case of partially delayed reinforcement, in which delay of rew…
Habit Reversal as a Function of Length of Partial Delay of Reinforcement
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Selective Learning and Habit Reversal as a Function of Partial Reinforcement during Training and Reversal
Four studies (Wike, 1953; Grosslight, Hall, & Scott, 1954; Kendler & Lachman, 1958; Gullahorn & Wike, 1959) have shown that partial reinforcement during training retards reversal learning.' Elam and Tyler ( 1958) reported that monkeys trained to execute a non-spatial, object discrimination where the correct object was rewarded 60% of the time and the incorrect object was reinforced on 40% of the occasions reversed the discrimination more slowly t…
Comment on se rappelle et on résume des histoires
Kintsch Walter, Van Dijk Teun A. Comment on se rappelle et on résume des histoires. In: Langages, 9e année, n°40, 1975. Problèmes de sémantique psychologique, sous la direction de Jean-François Le Ny. pp. 98-116.
Toward a model of text comprehension and production.
The semantic structure of texts can be described both at the local microlevel and at a more global macrolevel. A model for text comprehension based on this notion accounts for the formation of a coherent semantic text base in terms of a cyclical process constrained by limitations of working memory. Furthermore, the model includes macro-operators, whose purpose is to reduce the information in a text base to its gist, that is, the theoretical macro…
The role of culture‐specific schemata in the comprehension and recall of stories∗
Experiment I shows that readers write better summaries of stories for which they have an appropriate schema than for stories for which they lack a schema, and that this effect is related to the overall organization of the story and does not lie at the level of single sentences. Raters who judged the quality of the summaries found summaries from stories that corresponded to a familiar story schema more informative than those from stories for which…
Learning from text, levels of comprehension, or
Language and comprehension
Understanding and solving word arithmetic problems.
Method and tactics in cognitive science
Strategies of Discourse Comprehension
rhetorical schemata to be discussed in what follows. Finally, schemata are descriptions, not definitions. The 'bus' schema contains information that is nor
Strategies of Discourse Comprehension
The role of knowledge in discourse comprehension
In contrast to expectation-based, predictive views of discourse comprehension, a model is developed in which the initial processing is strictly bottom-up. Word meanings are activated, propositions are formed, and inferences and elaborations are produced without regard to the discourse context. However, a network of interrelated items is created in this manner, which can be integrated into a coherent structure through a spreading activation proces…
Sentence memory
The Role of Knowledge in Discourse Comprehension
Information accretion and reduction in text processing
Text comprehension, memory, and learning
People are often able to reproduce a text quite well but are unable to use the information in the text for other purposes. Factors that help people to reproduce a text have been studied for some time. This article explores ways that enable people to learn from texts. Content overlap between a text and the reader's prior knowledge is identified as one factor, and methods are proposed to identify whether a text is suitable for readers with given ba…
Remembering
In 1932, Cambridge University Press published Remembering, by psychologist, Frederic Bartlett. The landmark book described fascinating studies of memory and presented the theory of schema which informs much of cognitive science and psychology today. In Bartlett's most famous experiment, he had subjects read a Native American story about ghosts and had them retell the tale later. Because their background was so different from the cultural context …
Long-term working memory.
To account for the large demands on working memory during text comprehension and expert performance, the traditional models of working memory involving temporary storage must be extended to include working memory based on storage in long-term memory. In the proposed theoretical framework cognitive processes are viewed as a sequence of stable states representing end products of processing. In skilled activities, acquired memory skills allow these …
Spatial situation models and text comprehension
Three experiments examined how readers inferred spatial information that was relevant to a story character's movements through a previously memorized layout of a fictional building relative to various tasks. This study also examined how inference measures were related to spatial imagery and reading comprehension ability. Replicating the spatial separation effect reported by Morrow, Greenspan, and Bower (1987), probed objects were responded to fas…
Are Good Texts Always Better? Interactions of Text Coherence, Background Knowledge, and Levels of Understanding in Learning From Text
Two experiments, theoretically motivated by the construction-integration model of text comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), investigated the role of text coherence in the comprehension of science texts. In Experiment 1, junior high school students' comprehension of one of three versions of a biology text was examined via free recall, written questions, and a key-word sorting task. This study demonstrates advantages for globally coherent text and for…
Learning from texts
Two experiments, theoretically motivated by the construction‐integration model of comprehension (W. Kintsch, 1988), investigated effects of prior knowledge on learning from high‐ and low‐coherence history texts. In Experiment 1, participants’ comprehension was examined through free recall, multiple‐choice questions, and a keyword sorting task. An advantage was found for the high‐coherence text on recall and multiple‐choice questions. However, hig…
The measurement of textual coherence with latent semantic analysis
Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) is used as a technique for measuring the coherence of texts. By comparing the vectors for 2 adjoining segments of text in a high‐dimensional semantic space, the method provides a characterization of the degree of semantic relatedness between the segments. We illustrate the approach for predicting coherence through reanalyzing sets of texts from 2 studies that manipulated the coherence of texts and assessed readers’ …
Learning from text
This study examines the hypothesis that the ability of a reader to learn from text depends on the match between the background knowledge of the reader and the difficulty of the text information. Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA), a statistical technique that represents the content of a document as a vector in high‐dimensional semantic space based on a large text corpus, is used to predict how much readers will learn from texts based on the estimated…
Using latent semantic analysis to assess knowledge
In another article (Wolfe et al., 1998/this issue) we showed how Latent Semantic Analysis (LSA) can be used to assess student knowledge—how essays can be graded by LSA and how LSA can match students with appropriate instructional texts. We did this by comparing an essay written by a student with one or more target instructional texts in terms of the cosine between the vector representation of the student's essay and the instructional text in ques…
Psychology (33 works) · Computer Science (30 works) · Cognitive psychology (24 works) · Comprehension (22 works) · Linguistics (18 works) · Natural language processing (15 works) · Reading and Literacy Development (13 works) · Artificial Intelligence (10 works) · Cognitive science (8 works) · Language, Metaphor, and Cognition (8 works)