The Effects of Introduction Type on Comprehension and Memory for Scientific Explanations

EasyChair Preprint 3346, version 2

Abstract

The current study examined the effects of introductions on reading times and immediate and delayed recalls for brief scientific texts across two experiments (N = 219). The findings suggest that introductions improved participants’ memory for scientific explanations, both immediately and after a delay, without changes to reading times for scientific content. Both narrative and expository genres provided similar memorial benefits for scientific content, with narrative introductions also proving quite memorable for readers.

Keyphrases: Scientific Text Comprehension, learning, memory, text genre

@booklet{EasyChair:3346,
  author    = {Michael C. Mensink and Panayiota Kendeou and David N. Rapp},
  title     = {The Effects of Introduction Type on Comprehension and Memory for Scientific Explanations},
  howpublished = {EasyChair Preprint 3346},
  year      = {EasyChair, 2020}}