Two Decades of Structure Building

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Discourse Processing
• Psycholinguistics

Background:

• The Structure Building Framework is based on the first decade of discourse processing research.
• It posits that comprehension involves building coherent mental representations or structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To present the Structure Building Framework for cognitive processes in discourse comprehension.
• To review foundational research and present a decade of subsequent research testing the framework.

Main Methods:

• Review of seminal literature in discourse processing.
• Presentation of empirical research conducted over a decade to validate the Structure Building Framework.

Main Results:

• The framework models comprehension as a constructive process of building mental structures.
• Coherent information is mapped onto existing structures, while less related information initiates new substructures.
• Memory nodes, suppression, and enhancement are key components in managing mental structures.

Conclusions:

• The Structure Building Framework provides a parsimonious model for understanding discourse comprehension.
• The framework integrates foundational and contemporary research in cognitive discourse processing.