Computational Models of Reading: A Primer

This article brief ly reviews four computational models of reading and the types of empirical findings that they are designed to explain: (1) theDual-Route model of word identification (Coltheart et al., 2001); (2) the SimpleRecurrent Network model of sentence processing (Elman, 1990); (3) the Construction–Integration model of discourse representation (Kintsch, 1988); and (4) the E-Z Reader model of eye-movement control in reading (Reichle et al., 2012). These particular models are reviewed because they provide comprehensive accounts of a large number of empirical findings in each of their respective domains, and because they have advanced our understanding of the cognitive processes involved in reading by motivating new empirical studies. Future models of reading will build upon the success of their predecessors by integrating models from two or more of the aforementioned domains, thereby providing a means to examine the compatibility of their theoretical assumptions and more comprehensive accounts of the cognitive processes involved in reading. The perceptual, cognitive, and motor processes that support skilled reading are numerous, extremely complex, and work together in a highly coordinated manner. For those reasons, any deep understanding of what happens in the mind during reading requires the use of computational models that describe those processes and how they jointly determine both the on-line behavior that is observed during reading (e.g., the patterns of eye movements that readers make) and the products of that behavior (e.g., the mental representations that readers generate to understand the text). As will be discussed in this article, such models provide theoretical frameworks for understanding the mental processes involved in reading, but also advance our understanding by generating novel predictions that can be tested with experiments. In the remainder of this article, I will describe four existing models that have already played important roles in furthering our understanding of the psychology of reading. These models were selected for inclusion in this article because they account for a wide range of empirical phenomena within a broad area of reading research, and because they have motivated a large number of new empirical studies. The models were also selected because they collectively span the range of topics that have traditionally been studied by reading researchers: (1) word identification; (2) sentence processing; (3) the representation of discourse; and (4) how these different processes interact with other cognitive processes (e.g., attention) to determine the patterns of eye movements that are observed during reading. Because one goal of this article is to introduce the models in a way that is accessible to a broad audience, I will describe the models using schematic diagrams rather than their equations; for a more formal description of the models, see either the original articles or Reichle’s review of the models. Word-Identification Models Word-identification models describe how the visual features corresponding to a word on a printed page are used to access that word’s pronunciation and meaning, as well as behavioral deficits that result from impairment of these processes due to developmental delay or brain © 2015 The Author Language and Linguistics Compass