Functies Van Beeldspraak in Studietekstes

Various theorists have proposed different reasons for the usefulness of concrete analogies in written texts. Some stress a concretizing function, others a structurizing function, and still others suggest that analogies induce a more active proces-sing of the text. The main question which we tried to answer in a series of six experiments were:a. Does the addition of concrete analogies lead to higher per-formances and longer reading-times in subjects of different ages?b. What are the effects under restricted time conditions?c. Why are concrete analogies effective?d. Are there aptitude-treatment interactions? In general, the results showed that subjects, when confronted with analogies, not only studied longer, but learned more and different things. However, if the study time was limited, these effects disappeared. Furthermore some aptitude-treatment inter-actions were found, especially in the case of the visualizer-verbalizer dimension. All three of the above mentioned functions of analogies were supported by the data.