The Influence of Reader Perspective on Memorizing Information

This master’s thesis aims to take a closer look on the connection between reader’s perspective and memory. The research rests on a similar one previously conducted by Anderson and Pichert who investigated the correlation between a person’s perspective and the way it influences the ability to memorize information from the text. This topic of research is closely related to the concept of mental models which are described as preconceived knowledge of the world which allows a reader to fully understand the text they are reading as well as form their own conclusions based on the said text. Mental models alone, however, are not enough to ensure the full text comprehension. What allows a reader to fully understand a text being read is the connection between the concept of inferences and mental models. Inferences are what one would call subjective implications of text meaning. They are divided into bridging and elaborative inferences and the bridging ones are the ones connected to mental models as they are the ones that are used to make links between the sentences of a text, thus feeding into mental models and allowing full text comprehension. The previously mentioned terms are the starting point of this master’s thesis as they represent the basis of the research conducted in the thesis.