The main goal of text comprehension studies is to develop models that specifically take into account mental representations (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983) that the individual elaborates in memory while reading a text as well as the implied processes in the construction of that representation. One of the inherent conditions of constructing a mental representation, and therefore of comprehension, is that the reader can quickly and easily access a vast quantity of information, from textual elements previously provided to his or her own general knowledge of the world. Also, the current research was conducted in order to examine how activation processes withing global memory models (Hintzman, 1986 ; Ratcliff, 1978 ; Ratcliff & McKoon, 1988) might explain and take into account information activation during comprehension activities.

The results of these different studies, in which we were specifically interested in access to elements previously given in the text, underline the importance of defining information retrieval in LTM during reading as mnesic resonance processes that are passive, non-restricted, and operate on the basis of linking semantic traits with contextual traits in the traces of memory (O’Brien & Myers, 1999 ; Ratcliff, 1978). In addition, they suggest that the re-activation of information during reading is the result of the interaction between information being treated at the time, previously provided textual information, and the reader's knowledge base.




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