ABSTRACT
Research on, and theorizing about, language, discourse, text comprehension, and memory have demonstrated that (a) there are complex interactions among learner, text and task characteristics, and (b) limitations on cognitive resources lead to competition among various processing, storage, and retrieval activities, as well as strategies for accomplishing them (e.g., Goldman & Saul, 1990a; Just & Carpenter, 1992; Kletzien, 1991; Lee-Sammons & Whitney, 1991; Whitney, Ritchie, & Clark, 1991; Yochum, 1991). In this chapter, our primary interest is in models of text comprehension that have the potential to deal with interactions among learner, text, and task characteristics that have implications for resource allocation in working memory.
