David N. Rapp

Exercise influences spatial learning in the radial arm maze

Previous studies indicate that the hippocampus is active during exercise, and that neurotrophin expression, receptor density, and survival of dentate gyrus granule cells in the hippocampus can be modified by moderate voluntary exercise. The present study was designed to test the consequences of voluntary exercise on a hippocampal-related behavior. Exercising and control rats were tested on the standard and delayed nonmatch-to-position (DNMTP) version of the eight-arm radial maze, both of which are sensitive to hippocampal damage. Voluntarily exercising rats ran in running wheels attached to their home cage for 7 weeks prior to and throughout testing, and took 30% fewer trials to acquire criterion performance than sedentary controls. Both groups spent the same average time per arm. Once the eight-arm maze had been learned to criterion, group differences were not apparent. Exercise can facilitate acquisition of a hippocampal-related spatial learning task, but does not affect performance following acquisition. Further work will be necessary to link these effects to hippocampal-related variables shown to be influenced by exercise.

Dynamic Text Comprehension An Integrative View of Reading

Reading is one of the most complex and uniquely human of cognitive activities. Our understanding of the processes and factors involved in text comprehension is quite impressive, but it also is fragmented, with a proliferation of “mini-theories” for specific components that in reality are intertwined and interact with one another. Theories of dynamic text comprehension (DTC) aim to capture the integration of these components. They depict reading comprehension as an ongoing process involving fluctuations in the activation of concepts as the reader proceeds through the text, resulting in a gradually emerging interpretation of the material. Features of texts and characteristics of the reader jointly and interactively affect these fluctuations, influencing and being influenced by the readers understanding and memory of what is read. We illustrate the DTC approach by describing one theory, called the Landscape model, and summarize how its simulations match empirical data. We conclude with some implications of the DTC framework for basic and applied reading research.

Literacy and Learning in Health Care

The relationship between literacy and health outcomes are well documented in adult medicine, yet specific causal pathways are not entirely clear. Despite an incomplete understanding of the problem, numerous interventions have already been implemented with variable success. Many of those who proposed earlier strategies assumed the problem to originate from reading difficulties only. Given the timely need for more effective interventions, it is of increasing importance to reconsider the meaning of health literacy to advance our conceptual understanding of the problem and how best to respond. One potentially effective approach might involve recognizing the known associations between a larger set of cognitive and psychosocial abilities with functional literacy skills. Here we review the current health literacy definition and literature and draw on relevant research from the fields of education, cognitive science, and psychology. In this framework, a research agenda is proposed that considers an individuals “health-learning capacity,” which refers to the broad constellation of cognitive and psychosocial skills from which patients or family members must draw to effectively promote, protect, and manage their own or a childs health. This new, related concept will lead, ideally, to more effective ways of thinking about health literacy interventions, including the design of health-education materials, instructional strategies, and the delivery of health care services to support patients and families across the life span.

Revising what readers know: Updating text representations during narrative comprehension

Reading comprehension involves not just encoding information into memory, but also updating and revising what is already known or believed. For example, as narrative plots unfold, readers often must revise the expectations they have constructed from earlier portions of text to successfully comprehend later events. Evidence suggests that such revision is by no means guaranteed. In three experiments, we examined conditions that influence readers’ revision of trait-based models for story characters. Trait models are particularly relevant for examining such revision because they demonstrate resistance to change. We specifically assessed whether task instructions and content-driven refutations of earlier information would enhance the likelihood of revision. In Experiment 1, instructions to carefully consider the appropriateness of story outcomes generally facilitated revision. In Experiment 2, we removed those instructions; revision occurred only when refutations included sufficient explanation to suggest that updating was necessary. Experiment 3 further supported the influence of instructions on readers’ propensities to revise. These results are informative with respect to the mechanisms that guide readers’ moment-by-moment comprehension of unfolding narratives.

Mental Models: Theoretical Issues for Visualizations in Science Education

Mental models have been outlined as internal representations of concepts and ideas. They are memory structures that can be used to extrapolate beyond a surface understanding of presented information, to build deeper comprehension of a conceptual domain. Thus, these constructs align with the explicit objectives of science education; instructors want students to understand the underlying principles of scientific theories, to reason logically about those principles, and to be able to apply them in novel settings with new problem sets. In this chapter, I review cognitive and educational psychological research on mental models. Specific attention is given to factors that may facilitate students’ construction of mental models for scientific information. In addition, these factors are related directly to the use (and potential) of visualizations as educational methodologies. The chapter concludes with several challenges for future work on visualizations in science education.

Comparative analysis of print and multimedia health materials: A review of the literature

OBJECTIVE Evaluate the evidence regarding the relative effectiveness of multimedia and print as modes of dissemination for patient education materials; examine whether development of these materials addressed health literacy. METHODS A structured literature review utilizing Medline, PsycInfo, and the Cumulative Index to the Nursing and Allied Health Literature (CINAHL), supplemented by reference mining. RESULTS Of 738 studies screened, 30 effectively compared multimedia and print materials. Studies offered 56 opportunities for assessing the effect of medium on various outcomes (e.g., knowledge). In 30 instances (54%), no difference was noted between multimedia and print in terms of patient outcomes. Multimedia led to better outcomes vs. print in 21 (38%) comparisons vs. 5 (9%) instances for print. Regarding material development, 12 studies (40%) assessed readability and 5 (17%) involved patients in tool development. CONCLUSIONS Multimedia appears to be a promising medium for patient education; however, the majority of studies found that print and multimedia performed equally well in practice. Few studies involved patients in material development, and less than half assessed the readability of materials. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS Future research should focus on comparing message-equivalent tools and assessing their effect on behavioral outcomes. Material development should include explicit attention to readability and patient input.

Out of sight, out of mind: occlusion and the accessibility of information in narrative comprehension.

Do readers encode the perceptual perspectives of characters during narrative comprehension? To address this question, we conducted two experiments using stories that sometimes described situations in which certain information was occluded from the protagonists’ views. We generated two related hypotheses concerning the potential impact of occlusion events on text representations. One, theevent boundary hypothesis, suggested that any salient narrative event would reduce the accessibility of prior story information. The second, theperceptual availability hypothesis, suggested that accessibility would decrease most for information no longer visible to story protagonists. In Experiment 1, the participants were slowest to respond to verification questions that asked about occluded information. In Experiment 2, we demonstrated that this effect did not extend to other, nonoccluded information. These results suggest that readers encode text information from the perceptual perspective of story protagonists. This is consistent with recent perceptual symbol views of language comprehension.

Readers’ reality-driven and plot-driven analyses in narrative comprehension

We suggest that when readers experience narratives, their expectations about the likelihood of narrative events are informed by two types of analyses. Reality-driven analyses incorporate real-world constraints involving, for example, time and space; plot-driven analyses incorporate concerns about outcomes that emerge from the plot. We explored the interaction of these two types of analyses in the application of temporal situation models. Participants read stories in which the final episode occurred after a minute time shift (i.e., “A minute later …”) or hour time shift (i.e., “An hour later …”). Our experiments assessed participants’ judgments and reading times for statements describing the state of events (e.g., the possibility that characters could carry out particular behaviors) following each type of time shift. Experiments 1A and 1B demonstrated that readers are appropriately sensitive to the real concomitants of time shifts. Experiments 2A and 2B demonstrated, even so, that plot-driven preferences modify judgments and reading times away from reality-driven expectations. Our results have implications for the role of the reader in theories of narrative comprehension.

Interactive dimensions in the construction of mental representations for text.

To detail the structure and format of memory for texts, researchers have examined whether readers monitor separate text dimensions for space, time, and characters. The authors proposed that the interactivity between these individual dimensions may be as critical to the construction of complex mental models as the discrete dimensions themselves. In the present experiments, participants read stories in which characters were described as traveling from a start to a final location. During movement between locations, characters engaged in activities that could take either a long or short amount of time to complete. Results indicate that accessibility for the spatial locations was a function of the passage of time. The authors interpret this as evidence that the interactive nature of text dimensions affects the structure of representations in memory.

How do readers handle incorrect information during reading

How do readers deal with information that is inconsistent with what they know? This question has typically been addressed by examining whether carefully designed texts can help readers revise inaccurate beliefs. However, texts sometimes present incorrect information that runs counter to readers’ accurate knowledge. Three experiments were performed to examine how individuals process incorrect information during reading. Participants read stories describing familiar historical scenarios. These scenarios included historically accurate or inaccurate outcomes. The scenarios also included contexts that either supported accurate outcomes or utilized suspense to call into question the likelihood of those events. Overall, participants took longer to read inaccurate outcomes than to read accurate outcomes, but suspenseful contexts attenuated this difference. This pattern held even with a task that encouraged readers to consider their prior knowledge. Story contexts were particularly influential when modified to present novel scenarios. These results provide insight into the role of prior knowledge when readers encounter incorrect information, and into the consequences of such experiences.