Comprehension

Comprehension is the action or capability of understanding something.

It is understanding, grasp, apprehension, cognition, knowledge, awareness, perception; interpretation of a concept or a thought.

In logic, the comprehension of an object is the totality of intentions, that is, attributes, characters, marks, properties, or qualities, that the object possesses, or else the totality of intentions that are pertinent to the context of a given discussion. This is the correct technical term for the whole collection of intentions of an object, but it is common in less technical usage to see ‘intention’ used for both the composite and the primitive ideas.

Reading comprehension is the ability to process text, understand its meaning, and to integrate with what the reader already knows. Fundamental skills required in efficient reading comprehension are knowing meaning of words, ability to understand meaning of a word from discourse context, ability to follow organization of passage and to identify antecedents and references in it, ability to draw inferences from a passage about its contents, ability to identify the main thought of a passage, ability to answer questions answered in a passage, ability to recognize the literary devices or propositional structures used in a passage and determine its tone, to understand the situational mood (agents, objects, temporal and spatial reference points, casual and intentional inflections, etc.) conveyed for assertions, questioning, commanding, refraining etc. and finally ability to determine writer’s purpose, intent and point of view, and draw inferences about the writer (discourse-semantics).

An individual’s ability to comprehend text is influenced by their skills and their ability to process information. If word recognition is difficult, students use too much of their processing capacity to read individual words, which interferes with their ability to comprehend what is read. There are a number of reading strategies to improve reading comprehension and inferences, including improving one’s vocabulary, critical text analysis (intertextuality, actual events vs. narration of events, etc.) and practicing deep reading.

Understanding is a psychological process related to an abstract or physical object, such as a person, situation, or message one is able to think about and use concepts to deal adequately with that object. Understanding is a relation between the knower and an object of understanding. Understanding implies abilities and dispositions with respect to an object of knowledge that are sufficient to support intelligent behavior.

Understanding is often related to learning concepts, and sometimes also the theory or theories associated with those concepts. A person may have a good ability to predict the behavior of an object, animal or system and in some sense, understand it—without necessarily being familiar with the concepts or theories associated with that object, animal or system in their culture.

They may have developed their own distinct concepts and theories, which may be equivalent, better or worse than the recognized standard concepts and theories of their culture. Thus, understanding is correlated with the ability to make inferences.

Mathematical concepts were easier to comprehend than our convoluted method of communication. There is a problem and a logical formula to solve the problem in math. Numbers have unique qualities while words can have many interpretations and spellings.

Basic understanding of words put together (written or vocal) to transmit thoughts and ideas have been accomplished with a piece of paper and several years of listening.

Yet some of the actions and favors and notions in what is read or observed is beyond comprehension. If a television series watched or book read, how and reference be comprehended except to depend on what is presented until further research can enlighten comprehension.

Presenting a thought or idea (as in this Blog) can make perfect sense to the writer but the description does not transfer in a meaningful way to the reader. Like any social media, comments below or email questions or reviews can help with gaps of understanding.

How many times have the words “I Love You” been spoken with a plethora of meanings? Does the other person comprehend your meaning of those three words?