Non-contingent processes in reading

在阅读过程中展开的关键过程，以及对读者的大量重要影响，并不直接与文本的文字联系在一起。这些过程包括读者的情感和审美反应，材料与个人知识和经验的整合，阐述和远程推理，以及与阅读目标无关的同期过程。在普通的阅读模式中，这样的过程并不直接有助于文本的心理表征，但仍然是必不可少的。我将这些称为非偶然阅读过程，以强调它们与文本缺乏密切联系。在许多情况下，非偶然过程对于影响读者的观点和行为，增强他们对文本的享受，并首先提供阅读动机至关重要。因此，理解这些过程是分析阅读如何在人们的生活和文化中发挥作用的重要组成部分。在拟议的研究中，我将开发一个理论框架来理解非偶然过程及其含义，并将实施新的范式来研究相关现象。在我提出的理论框架中，我认为非偶然加工有三个组成部分：启动加工的触发刺激，加工过程中所需的资源和能力，以及阅读后可测量的阅读后效应。基于这一分析，非偶然过程可以根据其初始刺激在功能上进行区分：连贯过程是依赖于文本信息不同方面之间差异的过程。关联过程是指依赖于文本与读者个人知识和经验之间关系的过程。最后，外文本过程是指那些由环境事件或不相关的心理事件刺激的过程。提案资金将支持小说阅读范式的发展，这将为这些不同类型的过程提供新的证据。虽然以前已经调查了非偶然处理的各个方面，但本建议首次提供了这种处理如何开始、如何进行和如何产生影响的一般说明。通过在同一理论框架内处理不同类型的非偶然加工，将有可能建立它们之间的共性和功能相似性。所提出的研究将为调查这些相似性提供新的方法，所收集的经验证据将支持对这些现象的共同理解。这种理解将推动语篇处理领域向一个新的方向发展，并将进一步将其应用于阅读理解、阅读技能的习得以及叙事在我们文化中的作用等问题。

Critical processes that unfold while reading, and a great deal of the important effects on the reader, are not tied directly to the words of the text. These processes include affective and aesthetic reactions of the reader, integration of the material with personal knowledge and experience, elaborations and remote inferences, and contemporaneous processes unrelated to reading goals. Such processes do not directly contribute to a mental representation of the text in common models of reading, but are essential nonetheless. I refer to these as non-contingent reading processes to highlight their lack of close connection to the text. In many cases, non-contingent processes are essential for affecting readers' opinions and behaviour, enhancing their enjoyment of the text, and providing motivation for reading in the first place. Thus, an understanding of such processes is an essential part of the analysis of how reading functions in people's lives and in our culture. In the proposed research, I will develop a theoretical framework for understanding non-contingent processes and their implications, and I will implement new paradigms for investigating the related phenomena. In my proposed theoretical framework, I argue that non-contingent processing has three components: a trigger stimulus that initiates the processing, resources and capacities that are needed during the processing, and post-reading effects that can be measured after reading. Based on this analysis, non-contingent processes can be functionally distinguished in terms of their initiating stimuli: Coherence processes are processes that depend on discrepancies among different aspects of the textual information. Relevance processes are those that depend on the relation between the text and the reader's personal knowledge and experience. And finally, extratextual processes are those that are stimulated by events in the environment or unrelated mental events. The proposal funding will support the development of novel reading paradigms that will provide new evidence on each of these different types of processes. While aspects of non-contingent processing have been investigated previously, the present proposal provides the first general account of how such processing is initiated, is carried out, and has its effects. By treating the different types of non-contingent processing within the same theoretical framework, it will be possible to establish the commonalities and functional similarities among them. The proposed research will provide novel approaches to investigating these similarities, and the empirical evidence to be collected will support a common understanding of these phenomena. This understanding will advance the field of discourse processing in a new direction and will further its application to problems of reading comprehension, the acquisition of reading skills, and the role of narrative in our culture.