Does Sequence of Presentation Matter in Reading Comprehension? A Model Based Analysis of Semantic Concept Network Growth during Reading

Though not completely natural, reading is one of the most common means of learning for modern humans. In this paper we present an interesting study how the presentation sequence of concepts during reading might impact the semantic network of meaning generated. Text comprehension can be viewed as an incremental and episodic process. Concepts which are recognized are subsequently integrated into the background knowledge represented by a semantic network. We present a reading experiment in which groups of readers are presented same sample texts but in varying order of sentences to simulate different sequences of concept presentation. For comprehensive analysis, we also use a new computational model of the segmentation and integration process and summarize the learning. We then compare the resulting summary networks of the reader groups revealing a number of interesting observations.