ABSTRACT
Our focus throughout this volume has been on the way we comprehend information about people, objects, and events of the sort we encounter in daily life. In our discussion, we have emphasized the role of narrative representations of knowledge in conceptualizing new information and in making judgments of the people and events to which the representations refer. We have also considered the role of pictures and visual images in the comprehension and use of information. In doing so, however, we have virtually ignored an obvious but important factor that pervades information processing outside the laboratory.
