The empirical derivation of equations for predicting subjective textual information

✍ Scribed by Dan Kauffman; Mike Johnson; Gene Knight

• Book ID: 104623811
• Publisher: Springer Netherlands
• Year: 1976
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 950 KB
• Volume: 5
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0020-4277
• DOI: 10.1007/bf00054358

✦ Synopsis

Parameters pertaining to information processing by human beings have, in the past, been determined by learning and memory experiments with nonsense syllables, number sequences, etc. However, in the real world we are concerned with the processing of "meaningful information," not senseless texts. Therefore, the determination of subjective information directly from meaningful material becomes extremely important in the instruction-learning process.

This study derives an equation for predicting the subjective textual information contained in a text of material written in the English language. Specifically, this investigation describes, by a mathematical equation, the relationship between the stibjective information content of written textual material and the relative number of errors committed by a learner when asked to predict, letter by letter, the content of given textual material. This relationship shows that the subjective information of a given text for a specific learner is directly proportional to the number of wrongly guessed signs made by that learner. This is expressed mathematically by