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How to Do Things With Texts: A Functional Account of Reading Comprehension
Eileen Pfeiffer Flores1,2, Jorge Mendes de Oliveira-Castro2, Carlos Barbosa Alves de Souza3
1King's College, London, King's College, Philosophy Building, Strand Campus, London, WC2R 2ND UK.
The Analysis of Verbal Behavior
|December 30, 2020
Summary
This study clarifies reading comprehension by defining texts as stimulus classes and avoiding equating comprehension with behavior. It emphasizes that comprehension is context-dependent, influenced by social practices and reinforcement structures.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Psychology
- Cognitive Science
- Philosophy of Mind
Background:
- Existing functional accounts of reading comprehension face conceptual confusions.
- Defining texts as stimulus classes and comprehension as behavior are problematic, especially beyond basic literacy.
Purpose of the Study:
- To clarify conceptual confusions in reading comprehension literature.
- To contribute a functional account of reading comprehension.
- To propose a new framework for classifying reader-text contingencies.
Main Methods:
- Analysis of contingencies evoking "comprehension" using analytic philosophy.
- Examination of legal texts and stories as contrasting cases.
- Development of a classification framework based on setting openness and reinforcement embeddedness.
Main Results:
- Equating comprehension with behavior is not useful, particularly in complex settings.
- Comprehension is critically dependent on shared social practices associated with texts.
- A novel framework for reader-text contingencies is proposed.
Conclusions:
- Reading comprehension is a socially situated phenomenon, not merely a behavioral response.
- The proposed framework offers a nuanced way to classify reader-text interactions.
- This work aims to resolve conceptual bafflement in the study of reading comprehension.
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