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Previous studies deconfounding spatial and temporal proximity during map learning have found a temporal influence on mental map organization. The authors explored whether this observed priming effect reflected the manner in which a map was Learned by having people either name objects or point to them during learning. Naming objects resulted in temporal organization but pointing to objects resulted in spatial organization, suggesting that mental map organization is sensitive to emphasizing different types of map information during learning. The authors also explored whether the temporal organization observed in the naming group was influenced by the ease of using spatial information during learning, such as when the expectancy to use spatial information was made explicit or when a consistent temporal order was absent. When naming map objects, evidence for a spatial organization was weak, whereas a temporal organization was observed when a consistent temporal order was present.Knowledge of how objects are organized in space is necessary to understand the information conveyed by a map. Intuitively, it seems that a map's spatial structure should be reflected in its mental representation. However, theories differ in the extent to which spatial information is incorporated into the mental map. Some researchers have argued that the structure of the memory representation is primarily influenced by spatial information (e.g.,

Previous research has shown that older adults are able to use situation models in a manner similar to younger adults. However, other areas of cognition have shown that older adults are less able to remove irrelevant information from the current stream of processing. Accordingly, the authors tested whether older and younger adults would differ in reducing the availability of information about a completed goal in a situation model during narrative comprehension. In 2 experiments, memory probes tested for the availability of protagonist goal information during reading when it was either failed goal, completed goal, or neutral information. The results for both age groups showed that goal information was most available in the failed goal condition, less available in the completed goal condition, and least available in the neutral condition. No reliable differences between younger and older adults in the pattern of response times were observed. Reading time data were also examined to explore the possibility that older adults engage in a longer wrap-up period after a goal is completed, but no such difference was found. Language comprehension proceeds at many different levels. Most researchers have distinguished among at least three: (a) the surface level, which is composed of the actual words and syntax used, (b) the propositional level, which captures the meaning of an utterance in an abstract form, and (c) the situation model, which captures the gist of the situation described by an utterance (e.g.,

Six experiments used a fan-effect paradigm to test whether people can use the abstract relation of ownership to help integrate information into situation models. People studied sentences of the form The [person] owns/is buying the [object] for a later recognition test. The integration of sentences into a situation model (as evidenced by an attenuated or absent fan effect) was observed when the verb phrase referred to a specific event (is buying) and the objects could all be bought in the same place (e.g., a drugstore). This organization did not occur either when the verb phrase referred to general ownership (owns) or when the items were unlikely to be purchased in a single location (e.g., television and car). It was concluded that although abstract relations can be used to segregate information into sets that can be integrated into situation models, this integration is more likely when it can be embedded within a spatial-temporal framework. People often understand statements by mentally creating models of the situations they describe (Johnson-Laird, 1983, 1989; Kintsch, 1988; Radvansky & Zacks, in press; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983). These representations, which we refer to here as situation models, are mental simulations of the situations to which they refer. A situation model contains a set of tokens that represents the important entities of the situation as well as the functional relations among those entities. This article presents a view of how these representations have an influence on memory retrieval when they are created and how they are structured in cases in which the relations between entities are of a more abstract nature. Before considering how abstract relations may play a role in the organization and retrieval of situation models, we briefly review what sorts of organizational aspects of situation models have been studied previously. Research on the concept of situation models has covered a wide range of

How do people use spatial information stored in maps? This question has been explored in a number of domains, such as memory and language comprehension, with differing results. Some studies of how experimentally learned maps are organised in memory, using primed recognition, have found temporal information to influence mental map organisation. In contrast, studies of narrative comprehension, using probe identification and anaphoric reading times, have observed spatial effects. This study combines these two research traditions and shows that the organisation observed in long-term memory differs from the organisation in narrative comprehension, even when both tasks refer to the same map.