ABSTRACT
Most of our knowledge of the nature of expertise has been developed in the context of problem solving rather than comprehension. This is partly due to the fact that there has been, until recently, a general lack of connection between these two domains. Theories of comprehension have been primarily concerned with structural issues, whereas those in the area of problem solving have been concerned with the explication of processes. It seems reasonable to assume that, in verbally complex domains, the issues of general concern in the area of comprehension may play an important role. In fact, many of the studies of problem solving involving verbal tasks (e.g., Hayes & Simon, 1974; Kintsch & Greeno, 1985) have found it necessary to introduce structural notions such as schemata or propositions so that the verbal content of the task could be translated into a symbolic form.
