Understanding and Summarizing Brief Stories

Abstract

Upon hearing just these few words most readers already have a rather complete interpretation of the events in the story. Presumably, Mary is a little girl who wants to buy some ice cream from the ice cream man and runs into the house to get her money. Of course, it does not say this in the story; there are other possibilities. Mary could be afraid that the ice cream man might steal her birthday money, and so forth. Still, most readers find the first interpretation most plausible and retain it unless later information contradicts it. What happens when we read a story such as this? The purpose of this chapter is to suggest an account for this comprehension and show how this account allows us to account for aspects of story recall and summarization. Of course, we are not yet in a position to give a complete account of this process; nevertheless, I believe we can now begin to formulate an initial account and that we can begin to get empirical leverage on the process whereby we understand.

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