TOPIC KNOWLEDGE, COGNITIVE INTEREST, AND TEXT RECALL - A MICROANALYSIS

In a paper published in 1980, Kintsch argued that, everything else being equal, cognitive interest in a descriptive text is determined by how much a reader knows about the topic of the text. In the present study, a descriptive text on the topic of Stephen Hawking and his scientific work was partitioned into paragraphs, and then, for each paragraph, topic knowledge, cognitive interest, and text recall of a group of adult readers were measured. The three variables were highly associated. Of particular interest, given Kintsch’s argument, was the finding that whereas readers knowing nothing or everything about Hawking were more likely to be uninterested than interested in the paragraphs, readers knowing something were more likely to be interested than uninterested. Implications for learning from text are discussed. © 1991 Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.