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The aim of this paper is to present the emergence and development of the functionalist approach in the domain of text processing. Functionalists state that memory is not a locus where our knowledge is registered but a set of procedures, operations or ways to encode information. The originality of the functionalist approach is to consider that the expression of memory is the consequence of an interaction between the cognitive system triggering some mental operations and the particular demands of the changing environment. First, we expose works on reading and memory carried out by Paul Kolers (1926-1986), a precursor in this domain. Second, we present criticisms which were made in the 1980s by some researchers concerning Kolers' results (the question of the role of coding low level information when rereading texts) . Third, we treat the question of perceptual coding of individual words during reading and its role in subsequent activities of mnesic transfer. In this framework, we present the results of a series of recent works about the question of memory in connection with text reading difficulty. The article ends with general considerations on memory viewed within the functionalist framework.
