LEVELS OF REPRESENTATION AND DOMAIN-SPECIFIC KNOWLEDGE IN COMPREHENSION OF SCIENTIFIC TEXTS

Two levels of representation in text comprehension were postulated: a propositional representation and a mental (or situation) model of the content of the text. An experiment tested the assumption that the role of domain-specific knowledge on comprehension takes place at the level of the mental model. Two groups of experts and novices in the domain of memory read two sets of texts on memory and physics. Reading was interrupted by paraphrase and inference questions presented 0, 2 or 4 sentences after the critical information. Response times analysis for memory texts showed that experts were faster than novices for inferences, whereas no difference was observed for paraphrases. Experts were also faster when the distance increased. No difference between groups was observed for the physics texts. These results tend to indicate that performance differences attributable to domain-specific knowledge reflect differences in the construction of the mental model.