Memory serves many functions in the everyday transactions between the individual and the world. For example, we remember to stop at the grocery store, we remember where the grocery store is located, we remember how to drive an automobile in order to get to the grocery store, and, once there, we remember that we need to acquire the makings of a company meal scheduled for 2 days hence. These pieces of remembered information could be acquired in a number of ways, but in many everyday examples the remembered information is acquired through the processing of spoken or written language. We might, for example, hear or read instructions on how to drive a stick-shift automobile. The sequence of operations described in the verbal instructions would be stored and translated into a sequence of motor actions. Of course, the activity would not progress smoothly until such time as the motor actions became relatively automatic, but the initial representation of the activity could be acquired through spoken or written language. This chapter is concerned with the acquisition of information from written language (referred to as “prose” or “discourse”). The acquisition of information from spoken language is taken up in Chapter 13 by Stine, Wingfield, and Poon.

This chapter begins with a brief natural history of research in the area in which various kinds of studies intersect: discourse-processing, memory, and aging studies. Next, the current status in this research area is described, and the interpretation of current findings within existing models is outlined.