For David Olson and other 'formalists' the meaning of a text is 'contained in' the text, and it must be 'extracted' by readers. Those who stress negotiated meaning argue that the meanings of texts are neither completely predetermined nor completely open, but are subject to certain constraints. Some commentators refer to influences on the process of making meaning such as 'a preferred reading' - which may be represented in the text as 'an inscribed reader' or may emerge in 'interpretative communities'. Individual readers may either accept, modify, ignore or reject such preferred readings, according to their experience, attitudes and purposes . Research work in cognitive psychology and psycholinguistics has emphasized the creative activity of the reader.
Cognitive psychologists explain the interpretative act of reading in terms of 'schema theory'.
Bartlett explained memory as a creative process of reconstruction making use of such schemas. Many psychological experiments have shown the importance of our expectations in making sense of new experiences. Schemata embody such expectations. In the case of reading, they provide mental frameworks which help the reader to go, in Jerome Bruner's phrase, 'beyond the information given'. Even the most mundane texts require the reader to go beyond that which is explicitly stated in order to make sense of them, though we are normally unaware of the extent of such interpretation in our everyday reading.