Do readers construct spatial representations in naturalistic story comprehension?

Zwaan, Rolf A.; Oostendorp, Herre van

doi:10.1080/01638539309544832

Cited by 98 publications

(110 citation statements)

References 15 publications

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“…Perhaps readers do not normally pay so much attention to spatial information (Zwaan & van Oostendorp 1993). In response, Mike Rinck and I (Rinck & Bower 1995) conducted experiments that assessed focus effects without using any interrupting location probes.…”

Section: Distance Effects In Anaphor Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Evolution of a Cognitive Psychologist: A Journey from Simple Behaviors to Complex Mental Acts

Bower

2008

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

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The author summarizes his evolving interests from conditioning studies within a behaviorist orientation, thence to human memory, knowledge representation, and narrative understanding and memory. Arguing that the study of skilled reading provides a microcosm for revealing cognitive processes, he illustrates this by reviewing his research on the use of spatial priming to investigate readers' on-line updating of their situational models of texts. Conceptual entities close to the reader's focus of attention within the model are readily retrieved. Retrieval speed from memory declines with the probed object's distance from the current focus and decays with time elapsed in the narrative since the item was last in focus. The focus effect varies with the character's perspective, his status in the story, his active goals, and other factors. The results are accommodated within an associative network model distinguishing just-read sentences in short-term memory from activated portions of long-term memory structures to which they refer.

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Section: Distance Effects In Anaphor Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, changes in spatial attributes of the scene do not routinely cause situational shifts unless they are both large and relevant to ongoing actions (Zwaan & van Oostendorp 1993). When spatial location is relevant to ongoing actions, readers carefully track the locations of the main character and critical objects.…”

Section: The Spatial Dimensionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of a Cognitive Psychologist: A Journey from Simple Behaviors to Complex Mental Acts

Bower

2008

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

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“…Although often studied in isolation, causality and space may be closely intertwined in narratives Zwaan & van Oostendorp, 1994). For example, if a protagonist wants to keep his or her actions secret, the location of the other protagonists and the spatial layout in which the events take place are central to the comprehension of events.…”

Section: Causal Relevancementioning

confidence: 99%

“…Furthermore, the structure of spatial descriptions affects the construction. In studies of spatial mental models, descriptions were easier to transform into mental models when they were determinate (Baguley & Payne, 2000;Mani & Johnson-Laird, 1982), continuous (Denis & Cocude, 1992;Ehrlich & Johnson-Laird, 1982;Oakhill & Johnson-Laird, 1984), and condensed (Zwaan & van Oostendorp, 1994).…”

Section: Preconditions Of Spontaneous Spatial Situation Model Construmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, it has proved difficult to demonstrate spontaneous tracking of spatial relations in studies of text comprehension. In many experiments, comprehenders obviously avoided the effort of constructing spatial representations (de Vega, 1995;Levine & Klin, 2001;Zwaan, Radvansky, Hilliard, & Curiel, 1998;Zwaan & van Oostendorp, 1993). Several important preconditions for the spontaneous construction of spatial situation models were often flawed in previous studies but are usually fulfilled in naturalistic discourse.…”

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confidence: 99%

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Three Turtles in Danger: Spontaneous Construction of Causally Relevant Spatial Situation Models.

Jahn¹

2004

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cogni

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In 4 experiments, the author explored the spontaneous construction of spatial situation models during discourse comprehension by using the sentence-recognition paradigm of J. D. Bransford, J. R. Barclay, and J. J. Franks (1972). In Experiment 1, signaling causal relevance of spatial relations was a necessary precondition for replicating their original finding of spontaneously constructed spatial representations. Causal relevance was ensured in the subsequent experiments by a judgment task indirectly demanding the evaluation of described spatial relations with regard to causal relevance. Participants spontaneously constructed spatial situation models of text presented auditorily or visually. Effects of spontaneous construction were more reliable when encoding was easier. The results suggest a revised interpretation of J. D. Bransford et al.'s study and corroborate recent evidence showing that relevant spatial information in texts is reliably represented.

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Indexing space and time in film understanding

Magliano

Miller

Zwaan

2001

Applied Cognitive Psychology

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187

186

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We investigated the extent to which understanders monitor shifts in time and space during ®lm comprehension. Participants viewed a feature-length ®lm and identi®ed those points in the ®lm in which they perceived a change in situation. We performed an a priori analysis of the ®lms to identify the shifts in time, the movement of characters, and region. The relationship between the theoretical analysis of the ®lms and the participants judgements of situational change was assessed. The results provide support for the Event Indexing Model and suggest that situation models for ®lmed events are indexed along multiple dimensions of situational continuity. Furthermore, the pattern of results was similar for narrative ®lm as they are for narrative text. This ®nding suggest that there are general mechanisms for event understanding that operate independently of medium or mode of experience.It has long been assumed that stories conveyed through discourse represent much more than what is explicitly provided in a text. Rather, they convey a complex set of events that bear some resemblance to real-world events. In particular, narrative events occur within a particular time, place, and are causally connected. Situation models can capture the people, spatial and temporal settings, the goal plans and actions, and event sequences that are depicted in a story. In the present study, we tested a particular model of discourse understanding, namely the Event Indexing (EI) Model (Zwaan et al., 1995a;, in a non-text domain, speci®cally ®lm understanding. Narrative ®lms may more closely resemble everyday experiences than do narrative texts, given the perceptual and analogue nature of ®lmed events. As such, the present study may provide a test of the extent to which the EI model can account for event understanding in general.Theories of situation model construction assume that coherent models are indexed along multiple dimensions of situational continuity Magliano et al., 1998;Zwaan et al., 1995a;). The EI model (Zwaan et al., 1995a; assumes that the online monitoring of situational continuity is a central process in model construction. As each story event and action is comprehended, understanders monitor changes in continuity in entities, time, space, causality, and intentionality. This indexing provides a basis for monitoring coherence because it enables an understander to determine how incoming information is related to the prior context. To the extent that a current event shares an index on a particular dimension with an event that is currently in working memory, a link will be formed between them, via the index. If no link can be established, a new index will be formed on that dimension.

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Do readers construct spatial representations in naturalistic story comprehension?

Cited by 98 publications

References 15 publications

The Evolution of a Cognitive Psychologist: A Journey from Simple Behaviors to Complex Mental Acts

The Evolution of a Cognitive Psychologist: A Journey from Simple Behaviors to Complex Mental Acts

Three Turtles in Danger: Spontaneous Construction of Causally Relevant Spatial Situation Models.

Indexing space and time in film understanding

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