ABSTRACT
When reading for real-life purposes, readers often have to get information from multiple texts. They must both integrate information taken from various texts, and remember where each piece of information comes from. This chapter investigates the cognitive processes that underlie our ability to build up memory representations of multiple documents. Even though multiple document comprehension is typically carried out by experts in professional activities (e.g., historians, architects, or computer scientists), it may also be used as a means to foster students’ comprehension of complex topics. Thus, novice reading of complex documents requires specific cognitive processes, but it gives way to expert-like mental representations and forms of reasoning.
