Strategies for Abstracting Main Ideas from Simple Technical Prose

摘要

This report presents detailed results on performance in a comprehension task in which the reader must devise a brief statement of the main idea of short technical passages. The passage structure consisted of a generalization followed by several examples, and appeared either with or without an initial 'topic sentence' stating the generalization. Data on response content, reading time, ratings of importance of passage sentences, and 'think aloud' protocols were collected. The results suggest that most readers use a simple strategy tailored to the generalization structure of the passages. This strategy reflects both a reliance on the surface structure of the passage, such as what is first mentioned, and use of a moderate, but not complete, understanding of the actual passage content. Some subjects were found to be defective in their strategy; the most clearly defined defect consisting of a failure to recognize the generalization nature of the main idea. The prevalent strategy was represented in the form of a computer simulation using production systems and propositional memory structures.