skip navigation

Not in the United States?
change your preferences.

Language Comprehension As Structure Building

• By Morton Ann Gernsbacher

• Price: $99.95
• Binding: Hardback
• Pages: 304
• Published by: Psychology Press
• Publication Date: 1st October 1990
• ISBN: 978-0-8058-0676-2

About the Book

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.

Table of Contents

Contents: Introduction. The Process of Laying a Foundation. The Processes of Mapping and Shifting. The Mechanisms of Suppression and Enhancement. Individual Differences in Structure Building. Conclusions.