Biomedical subjects

W Kintsch

Publications and source records attributed to W Kintsch.

9 recordsLinked to original sources

PubMed1995

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 end products to be stored in long-term memory and kept directly accessible by means of retrieval cues in short-term memory, as proposed by skilled memory theory. These theoretical claims are supported by a review of evidence on memory in text comprehension and expert performance in such domains as mental calculation, medical diagnosis, and chess.

Aptitude↗

PubMed1994

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 background knowledge. For readers with low background knowledge, a text should be as coherent and explicit as possible to facilitate learning. However, data are presented to show that for readers with adequate background knowledge, texts with coherence gaps that stimulate constructive activities are in fact better for learning.

Attention↗

PubMed1992

Prompt comprehension in UNIX command production.

We hypothesize that a cognitive analysis based on the construction-integration theory of comprehension (Kintsch, 1988) can predict what is difficult about generating complex composite commands in the UNIX operating system. We provide empirical support for assumptions of the Doane, Kintsch, and Polson (1989, 1990) construction-integration model for generating complex commands in UNIX. We asked users whose UNIX experience varied to produce complex UNIX commands, and then provided help prompts whenever the commands that they produced were erroneous. The help prompts were designed to assist subjects with respect to both the knowledge and the memory processes that our UNIX modeling efforts have suggested are lacking in less expert users. It appears that experts respond to different prompts than do novices. Expert performance is helped by the presentation of abstract information, whereas novice and intermediate performance is modified by presentation of concrete information. Second, while presentation of specific prompts helps less expert subjects, they do not provide sufficient information to obtain correct performance. Our analyses suggest that information about the ordering of commands is required to help the less expert with both knowledge and memory load problems in a manner consistent with skill acquisition theories.

Computer Simulation↗

PubMed1988