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

Jahn, Georg

doi:10.1037/0278-7393.30.5.969

Cited by 29 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 77 publications

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“…However, results of our study as well as recent research suggest that readers focus on dimensional shifts that are causal relevant. Jahn (2004) reported that causal relevance is a precondition for the spontaneous construction of situation models, and Sundermeier et al (2005) showed that speeded recognition is improved when probe words are causally relevant. In general, inference generation are cognitively demanding processes (e.g., Britton and Graesser 1996;Friedman and Miyake 2000;Kintsch 1998).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

“…Participants' response times to a probe word were smaller when the probe was causally relevant than when it was not. Also for the spontaneous construction of spatial situation models causal relevance is an important precondition (Jahn 2004). Overall, numerous studies indicate that understanding causal relations does indeed take a prominent role in narrative understanding (e.g., Brownstein and Read 2007;Poynor and Morris 2003;Sundermeier et al 2005;Trabasso 1989;Trabasso and Sperry 1985;Trabasso et al 1995;Trabasso and van den Broek 1985;van den Broek and Trabasso 1986;Wolfe et al 2005) and they suggest that readers might primarily focus on causal relations above all other situation model dimensions.…”

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confidence: 96%

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How hypertext reading sequences affect understanding of causal and temporal relations in story comprehension

Urakami

Krems

2011

Instr Sci

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The goal of this study is to examine the comprehension of global causal and temporal relations between events that are represented in single hypertext documents. In two experiments we examined how reading sequences of hypertext nodes affects the establishment of event relations and how this process can be supported by advanced organizers that provide either temporal or causal pre-information. In the first experiment we could show that discourse structure affected recall of temporal event sequences only when causal relations were absent. In a second experiment, the comprehension of either temporal or causal relations was facilitated by providing different types of pre-information (advanced organizer). Temporal pre-information facilitated recall of temporal event sequences without underlying causal relations. In contrast, causal pre-information facilitated recall of temporal event sequences with causal relations. The results demonstrate that readers use causal information to construct temporal event sequences.Keywords Temporal relations Á Causal relations Á Text comprehension Á Hypertext Á Advanced organizer Temporal sequences and causal relations in story comprehensionCurrent theories of text understanding assume that text comprehension involves the construction of a coherent multidimensional representation (e.g. temporal, causal, spatial dimension) called a situation model (van Dijk and Kintsch 1983;Graesser et al. 1997;Zwaan and Radvansky 1998). The situation model is the mental representation of the text content which includes information from the text as well as from the reader's background knowledge. A situation model is coherent when single elements are meaningfully related to each other and to the reader's existing knowledge (van den Broek and Gustafson 1999).In a traditional text the discourse structure, the sequence of paragraphs or pages from the beginning to the end of a text functions as a set of processing cues for how to construct a situation model (Graesser et al. 1997;Kintsch 1998;Murray 1995). However, in certain text genres such as hypertext the authors' options for supporting the generation of global coherence are limited. Hypertext is an electronic text consisting of linked documents (nodes). Readers can normally read hypertext nodes in various self-chosen sequences instead of following a pre-defined order. Thus, a major difference between reading traditional text versus reading hypertext is that the comprehension process cannot be guided as much by an author who arranges paragraphs in a meaningful sequence and who provides cues for building up a coherent situation model. Consequently, an individual reading sequence in hypertext does not necessarily follow logically obvious event relations. Salmerón et al. (2006) showed that readers follow different strategies when selecting the reading order of hypertext nodes. Moreover, these strategies affected knowledge acquisition. It is still not well understood how readers manage to establish global coherence under these circumstances (DeStefano and LeFe...

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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confidence: 96%

How hypertext reading sequences affect understanding of causal and temporal relations in story comprehension

Urakami

Krems

2011

Instr Sci

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“…Much recent work suggests that spatial information may only be tracked in the context of relevant cues such as reading goals, temporal shifts, and causal relatedness (e.g, de Vega, 1995;Jahn, 2004;Levine & Klin, 2001;Magliano, Miller, & Zwaan, 2001Morrow, Greenspan, & Bower, 1987;Rapp & Taylor, 2004;Rich & Taylor, 2000;. Thus, mental models containing comprehensive spatial information may only develop under very limited circumstances.…”

Section: Developing Spatial Mental Modelsmentioning

confidence: 98%

Working memory in developing and applying mental models from spatial descriptions☆

Brunyé

Taylor

2008

Journal of Memory and Language

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“…For example, when people read sentences that described an event, causal relevance was a necessary condition for them to spontaneously generate spatial models of that event (Jahn, 2004). People also monitor model dimensions and the ways they interact to aid their comprehension.…”

Section: Situation Model Updating and Expectationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Narrative event boundaries, reading times, and expectation

Pettijohn

Radvansky

2016

Mem Cogn

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During text comprehension, readers create mental representations of the described events, called situation models. When new information is encountered, these models must be updated or new ones created. Consistent with the event indexing model, previous studies have shown that when readers encounter an event shift, reading times often increase. However, such increases are not consistently observed. This paper addresses this inconsistency by examining the extent to which reading-time differences observed at event shifts reflect an unexpectedness in the narrative rather than processes involved in model updating. In two reassessments of prior work, event shifts known to increase reading time were rated as less expected, and expectedness ratings significantly predicted reading time. In three new experiments, participants read stories in which an event shift was or was not foreshadowed, thereby influencing expectedness of the shift. Experiment 1 revealed that readers do not expect event shifts, but foreshadowing eliminates this. Experiment 2 showed that foreshadowing does not affect identification of event shifts. Finally, Experiment 3 found that, although reading times increased when an event shift was not foreshadowed, they were not different from controls when it was. Moreover, responses to memory probes were slower following an event shift regardless of foreshadowing, suggesting that situation model updating had taken place. Overall, the results support the idea that previously observed reading time increases at event shifts reflect, at least in part, a reader's unexpected encounter with a shift rather than an increase in processing effort required to update a situation model.

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

Cited by 29 publications

References 77 publications

How hypertext reading sequences affect understanding of causal and temporal relations in story comprehension

How hypertext reading sequences affect understanding of causal and temporal relations in story comprehension

Working memory in developing and applying mental models from spatial descriptions☆

Narrative event boundaries, reading times, and expectation

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