The Effects of Causal Connections on Memory of Discourse

Abstract

Studies about understanding and remembering of a discourse have reported that causal relations are very important in creating a coherent representation of a discourse. According to the studies, readers interpret the statements of a discourse based on the causal relations between the events and states described in the statements (Schank, 1975; Trabasso, Secco, & van den Broek, 1984, Fletcher & Bloom, 1989; van den Broek & Lorch, 1993). Specifically, Trabasso and his colleagues proposed a model in which the representation of a discourse is expressed in terms of a network of causal relations. (Trabasso, Secco, & van den Broek, 1984; Trabasso & Sperry, 1985; Trabasso, van den Broek, & Suh, 1989). According to their Causal Network Model, people identify causal relations between the events and states described in the sentences and integrate the sentences based on the causal relations. Thus, the representation that is created after reading a discourse forms a network where the nodes refer to the sentences and the links between the nodes refer to the causal relations between the sentences( c.f. Trabasso, van den Broek & Suh, 1989).