Miller, J. R., & Kintsch, W. (1980). Readability and Recall of Short Prose Passages: A Theoretical Analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6(4), 335-354

Miller, J.; Kintsch, W.

1980

Miller, J. R., & Kintsch, W. (1980). Readability and Recall of Short Prose Passages: A Theoretical Analysis. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Learning and Memory, 6(4), 335-354

geen

Readability can be viewed as an interaction between a text and the reader’s prose-processing capabilities, rather than as some innate property of a text. In support of this view, this article applies an extended and formalized version of the Kintsch en van Dijk prose processing model to 20 texts varying in readability. Each text was read by 120 subjects; reading times and recall protocols were collected. In addition, each text was analyzed y the processing model. This analysis allowed recall predictions based on the frequency of microstructure processing of text’s propositions and readability predictions from the frequencies of events that indicate processing difficulty. Recall predictions were moderately successful in spite of the absence of macrostructure processing, and multiple regression predictions of readability (reading time per proposition recalled), reading time and recall ranged from r = .8 to .9.

Readability is not a property of a text, to be measured by the right kind of formula. The results reported here lend support to an alternative conception of readability, in which the readability of a text is determined by the ways that certain text properties – primarily the arrangement of the propositions in the text base, but also word frequency and sentence length – interact with the reader’s processing strategies and resources. The number of inferences that need to be made in the construction of a coherent text base and the number of reinstatements of already processed propositions into working memory appear to be two very important determinants of reading ability.

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