Strategic focusing of attention during narrative reading

In 2 experiments based on the constructionist view of text comprehension, w e investigated whether readers are able to ststrategically use, in a proble m solving matter, spatial and temporal information that varies in its relev ance to the goals of the protagonists. In order to accomplish this, we vari ed the specificity of the protagonists' goal descriptions. Both experiments consisted oof a reading section, a test, and a questionnaire, and differed only in respect to when the questionnaire; was administered. The results o f both experiments showed that readers were able to use spatial and tempora l information of narrative texts in a strategic matter, and they even did s o without explicit instruction. This focus of attention, however was not un iformly reflected in the reading times. Memory data showed a clear disadvan tage for temporal information as compared to spatial information. This was the case even though both types of information had been equally well identi fied in the questionnaire as crucial to the problem solving process of the protagonist.