Macrostructure construction and organization in the processing of multiple text passages |
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| Authors: | Natasha Lacroix |
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| Institution: | (1) University of Poitiers, Language and Cognition Laboratory – EP CNRS 1594, 99 avenue du Recteur Pineau, 86022 Poitiers Cedex, France; Phone |
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| Abstract: | This paper addresses the issue of macrostructural processing of multiple text passages. Two levels of macrostructural processing, macrostructural construction (extracting important information) and organization (structuring selected information) may be at work during complex text comprehension. Three experiments examined the effects of various textual and situational factors on macrostructural construction and organization. College students were asked to read small sets of documents presented in hypertext format. The students' reading strategies as well as their written reports were analyzed. Experiment 1 showed that headings and presentation format influence macrostructural organization. Experiment 2 showed that task requirements tend to influence macrostructure construction and organization, whereas presentation conditions, such as the marking of important information and the presentation order, can affect both levels of macrostructural processing. Finally, experiment 3 indicated that there is an interaction between global and local headings and the construction and organization of macrostructure. The three experiments also suggested that subjects can be characterized based on how well they deal with macrostructural construction and organization. It is concluded that the comprehension of hypertext involves higher levels of cognitive processing which ensure the structuring of multiple text information. |
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| Keywords: | headings macrostructure construction macrostructure organization nonlinear text structure text comprehension |
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