Keller Timothy A, Mason Robert A, Legg Aliza E, Just Marcel Adam
Center for Cognitive Brain Imaging, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA, 15213, USA.
NPJ Sci Learn. 2024 Mar 21;9(1):21. doi: 10.1038/s41539-024-00232-y.
As science and technology rapidly progress, it becomes increasingly important to understand how individuals comprehend expository technical texts that explain these advances. This study examined differences in individual readers' technical comprehension performance and differences among texts, using functional brain imaging to measure regional brain activity while students read passages on technical topics and then took a comprehension test. Better comprehension of the technical passages was related to higher activation in regions of the left inferior frontal gyrus, left superior parietal lobe, bilateral dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, and bilateral hippocampus. These areas are associated with the construction of a mental model of the passage and with the integration of new and prior knowledge in memory. Poorer comprehension of the passages was related to greater activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the precuneus, areas involved in autobiographical and episodic memory retrieval. More comprehensible passages elicited more brain activation associated with establishing links among different types of information in the text and activation associated with establishing conceptual coherence within the text representation. These findings converge with previous behavioral research in their implications for teaching technical learners to become better comprehenders and for improving the structure of instructional texts, to facilitate scientific and technological comprehension.
随着科学技术的迅速发展，了解个体如何理解解释这些进展的说明性科技文本变得越来越重要。本研究使用功能性脑成像来测量学生阅读科技主题文章并随后进行理解测试时大脑区域的活动，考察了个体读者在科技理解表现上的差异以及不同文本之间的差异。对科技文章的更好理解与左下额叶回、左上顶叶、双侧背外侧前额叶皮质和双侧海马体区域的更高激活有关。这些区域与构建文章的心理模型以及在记忆中整合新知识和已有知识有关。对文章的较差理解与腹内侧前额叶皮质和楔前叶的更大激活有关，这些区域参与自传体和情景记忆检索。更易理解的文章引发了更多与在文本中建立不同类型信息之间的联系相关的大脑激活，以及与在文本表征中建立概念连贯性相关的激活。这些发现与之前的行为研究结果一致，对教导科技学习者成为更好的理解者以及改进教学文本结构以促进科技理解具有启示意义。
