Research in experimental psychology, computer intelligence, and linguistics indicates that semantic memory can be organized into episodic units. There are five aspects of reading comprehension that are potentially episodic: the identity of reading, the identity of the person communicating, the identity of the audience to which the message was directed, the circumstances under which the message was transmitted, and the reason for transmitting the message. As these aspects become progressively abstract, the complexity of forming an episodic association increases. A structure for assessing episodic, mnemonic complexity of reading materials is developed.
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