User:Caracola/sandbox

When people read a story, they not only construct mental representations of the words and sentences within it, but also of the situations that are suggested by the words and sentences. These representations have become known as situation models, which are “mental representations of the state of affairs described in a text,” not the text itself. Much of the research on situation models in narrative comprehension suggests that the readers behave as though they are in the narrated situation, rather than outside of it looking in.

Since the current section on Situation Models has only a brief definition, I will first provide a much more detailed definition of what a Situation Model is. Situation models are created when readers form a mental representation while reading a text. Each model that is created represents a unique situation or event (Radvansky, Gabriel and Dijkstra 2007). Readers get inside of stories and vividly experience them, feeling sympathy for characters, “happy when good things occur, worry when characters are in danger,” etc. (Zwann 1999). A book by Zwaan, Magliano, and Graesser (1995) explains how situation models are constructed through the use of a structure building framework. A Structure building framework involves the reader’s construction of mental structures when they read a text as they map out information coming in, onto the evolving structure (Zwann, Magliano and grasser 1995). When there are discontinuities, or gaps, in the situation being constructed, the reader is prompted to shift from building one structure to another.

Next, I will go on to discuss the 3 levels of representation when a person reads a text. An article by Radavansky (2005) outlines the 3 basic levels. The lowest level is the surface form level, which are basic representations of the words and syntax that were used in the, followed by the propositional text based level which include abstract representations of the idea units in the text, and finally the highest level is the situation model, which includes representations of the situation to which the text refers (Radavansky, 2005). Basically, the first two levels are surface and text based representations of what the text was, and the highest level is a representation of what the text was about.

When examining situation models, it is also important to discuss the different dimension involved in their construction. The 3 dimensions I will be discussing include time, space and causation (Zwaan 1995). It is also important to look at the effects which continuity and discontinuity within each dimension have on the construction of a situation model (Zwaan, Magliano, and Graesser, 1995). Since the construction of many situation models is dynamic, it is important to look at the way in which humans integrate new and incoming information into their representation. There are several updating theories which discuss this, and I plan to discuss the two basic ones. These are here-and-now view, and memory-based text processing view (O’Brien, Cook, Peracchi 2004).

Finally I will discuss the effects of situation models in regards to aging as described by Radavansky and Dijkstra (2007). In contrast, I will also discuss the abilities of children to construct situation models, and the difficulties they face described by Pyykkonen and Jarvikivi (20120).

==References==