Cognitive Processes and Mechanisms in Language Comprehension: The Structure Building Framework

Abstract

Publisher Summary This chapter explores that language is viewed as a specialized skill involving language-specific processes and language-specific mechanisms. Another position views the processing of language-be it comprehension or production-as drawing on many general cognitive processes and mechanisms. Such processes and mechanisms might also underlie nonlinguistic tasks as well. It describes few of cognitive processes and mechanisms, using a simple framework, the structure building framework, as a guide. According to the structure building framework, the goal of comprehension is to build a coherent, mental representation, or structure of the information being comprehended. Several component processes are involved. If the incoming information is less coherent or related, comprehenders employ a different process: They shift and initiate a new substructure. Thus, most representations comprise several branching substructures. The chapter also discusses the three subprocesses involved in the structure building process: laying a foundation, mapping coherent or relevant information onto that foundation, and shifting to initiate a new substructure. It also discusses the two mechanisms that control the structure building processes: enhancement, which increases activation, and suppression, which dampens it.