Semantic Processing and Cognitive Flexibility in Hypertext Environments

• In Event: 34.074 - The Underpinnings of Cognitive Flexibility and Instructional Implications: An Interactive Symposium

Abstract

With the development of hypertext—linked text that allows readers to create their own individual path through a body of content—researchers have, over the past three decades, re-examined their views on knowledge acquisitions. Proponents of Cognitive Flexibility Theory (CFT) (Spiro & Jehng, 1990; Spiro, Coulson, Feltovich & Anderson, 1988; Spiro, Vispoel, Schmitz, Samarapungavan & Boerger, 1987) proposed that the reader can become the constructor of his/her own unique text in a hypertext environment (Lawless & Kulikowich, 1996; Jacobson & Spiro, 1995). The linked structure of hypertext allows the user to access information from different paths—providing opportunities to integrate new information into existing conceptions and make connections among concepts that are not likely to occur when reading traditional text. This process of criss-crossing the conceptual landscape requires that readers engage in deeper levels of semantic processing when engaging with the material and to create more sophisticated and inter-connected conceptual understanding of the content (Spiro & Jehng, 1990; Spiro, Vispoel, Schmitz, Samarapungavan & Boerger, 1987; Jacobson & Spiro, 1995). Such inter-connected understandings may, in turn, contribute to individuals’ cognitive flexibility, as will be further described and discussed in this presentation.

Author

• Dale S. Niederhauser, West Virginia University