The construction-integration model is a theory of how readers construct meaning from text, developed by the cognitive psychologist Walter Kintsch and set out fully in his 1988 paper in the journal Psychological Review. It describes comprehension as unfolding in two phases: a construction phase, in which the reader converts the words of a text into an initial, loosely connected network of propositions representing what the text literally says, including multiple candidate meanings for any ambiguous wording; and an integration phase, in which that initial network is refined using the reader's background knowledge and the surrounding context, so that irrelevant or contradictory propositions are weakened and a coherent representation survives. The model distinguishes between the textbase, the reader's representation of the propositions the text directly expresses, and the situation model, a richer mental representation that integrates the textbase with the reader's own prior knowledge of the situation being described. Because it combines a symbolic, rule-based construction step with a more associative, connectionist-style integration step, the construction-integration model has been influential both as an account of human reading comprehension and as a foundation for later computational models of text understanding.
Facts
Core ClaimSourced to the subject's own accountComprehension proceeds through a construction phase, in which the text's words are converted into an initial network of propositions including multiple candidate meanings, followed by an integration phase in which related meanings are reinforced and contradictory ones suppressed until a coherent representation stabilizes. 1 FAQs
Why does the construction-integration model let a reader build wrong meanings first?
Because the contradictory meanings of an ambiguous sentence compete, and the competition stabilizes into a coherent structure.
The model treats comprehension as something that settles over time rather than something decided word by word. When the reader builds the first network of propositions from an ambiguous sentence, that network includes multiple, contradictory meanings. Those competing meanings are not picked between at the start. Instead, the meanings activate and suppress one another, and this jostling of activation and suppression eventually stabilizes into a coherent structure. In this account the early presence of unwanted meanings is part of how understanding is reached, not a sign that the reader has failed.
Sources
1. Scott H Young: How Does Understanding Work?
Scott H Young (personal site)Blog post, description of the integration phaseQuote, Blog post, description of the integration phase
this jostling of activation and suppression eventually stabilizes into a coherent structure
2. PubMed: The Role of Knowledge in Discourse Comprehension
National Library of Medicine (PubMed)PubMed record PMID 3375398, citation lineQuote, PubMed record PMID 3375398, citation line
Psychol Rev. 1988 Apr;95(2):163-82.
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