ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the authors review what is known of the psychological correlates of text structure; that is, they examine research that has investigated how variations in text structure influence the way people read, comprehend, and remember text. A problem that pervades the research into the psychological correlates of text structure is the confounding of text structure with text content. The psychological unity of connected discourse may derive from the fact that the reader's knowledge, beliefs, and expectations permit him or her to organize and interrelate elements in the text. The study of the psychological correlates of text structure has only recently received attention that is in any way commensurate with its importance and complexity. The development of text structure analysis and text grammars has provided a new method for determining the importance of text elements and has again demonstrated that important text elements are better recalled.
