Argues that a weak form of schema theory (a schema being an abstract set of expectations) gives the best account of the knowledge most people have about ordinary matters. Emphasizes that a person's culture is a principal determiner of what is already known and what can come to be known. (KH)

To characterize basic processes of reading comprehension, this report focuses on how the reader's schemata, or knowledge already stored in memory, function in the process of interpreting new information and allowing it to enter and become a part of the knowledge store. The paper first traces the historical antecedents of schema theory, then…

In two experiments, subjects were instructed to take a distinctive point of view while reading and recalling a story. The results were interpreted to mean that the schema brought into play by the perspective instructions selectively enhances encoding when operative during reading, and selectively enhances retrieval when operative during attempts…

Reports that results of two experiments designed to assess the effects of text cohesion and schema availability on children's comprehension of social studies passages that varied in vocabulary difficulty failed to support expectations based on the interactive theory of reading. (FL)

Subjects read narratives about a meal at a fine restaurant or a trip to a supermarket. The same 18 items of food, attributed to the same characters, were mentioned in the same order in the two stories. As predicted from current formulations of schema theory, foods from categories determined to be part of most people's restaurant schemata were…