中華心理學刊
民95 ， 48 卷， 2 期， 115-138

Yuhtsuen Tzeng（Graduate Institute of Curriculum Studies, National Chung Cheng University）；Pei-Lan Chen（Graduate Institute of Curriculum Studies, National Chung Cheng University）

Abstract

We tested whether causal structures of text affected Chinese readers and further examined this effect on two levels of representation for 4th & 6th grade students. Structures of texts were manipulated to create a  ierarchical version in which all story episodes were organized by a major common goal and a sequential version in which each story episode was served by a distinctive goal. Experiment 1 revealed that hierarchical texts benefit Chinese readers than sequential versions for text-based representation but not for situation models. Experiment 2, using more authentic stories which carry clear moral, indicated that hierarchical stories benefit students for both levels of representation whereas the effect of grade appears for situation models only but not for text-based representation. Older readers did not differ from younger readers in text-based representation but performed better in situation models across two experiments. Causal structures of text are important for Chinese narrative comprehension and it depends on types of representation measured and student’s grade level. 

Keywords: causal structure, reading comprehension, text base representation, situation model