ABSTRACT
Whether going to work in the morning, writing a research paper, or attempting to read electronic mail, planning plays a large role in the course of our lives. The plans resulting from these activities are created in order to satisfy internal goals, as well as in response to external pressures, such as when directions are given to perform some task. In the context of the research presented here, plans are a series of proposed actions designed to achieve a goal (e.g., Miller, Galantner, & Pribram, 1960), that is determined by and dependent on, a reader’s comprehension of some set of verbal instructions. The purpose of this chapter is to demonstrate, by describing two research programs that extend the construction-integration model (Kintsch, 1988) to simulate action planning, the generality and utility of Kintsch’s theory as a unifying framework in psychology.
