Levels of discourse representation and mental models

Question 1

Proposition:

Answer 1

core meaning of a sentence, as expressed by its linguistic content, that captures the real-world event or the situation that would have to occur in order for that sentence to b e judged to be true

Question 2

Construction-integration theory

Answer 2

• Surface representations: identifications of words along with their syntactic and semantic relations. Short-lived
• Propositional representations: representation of meaning of the sentences apart form the exact wording. Includes inferences
• Situation model: info is directly and explicitly stated, plus inferences. Mental stimulation of the events, captures a number of different features of the real or imaginary world

Question 3

Recognition memory

Answer 3

• Surface memory is strong immediately following the story reading but is quickly lost
• Text-base memory starts high but is delayed gradually over days
• Memory for the situation model starts high and remains strong over time

Question 4

Beyond linguistic content: mental models

Situation model

Answer 4

Detailed conceptual representations of real-world situations that are evoked by language.

Maryellen MacDonald and Marcel: probed readers’ mental models with a memory task.
Sentence followed by a probe word and had to say if it was present.
Response was higher when recognizing negation of 2nd object than 1st one.
Affirmative question, readers’ representations of sentences are more like encodings of real situations than abstract propositions.

Question 5

Beyond linguistic content: mental models

What info “sticks” in memory?
John Bransford and col.

Answer 5

Turtles, log and fish
Small difference in wording but large difference in mental models
Small difference in wording but identical mental model

• People remember the mental model that is the product of the linguistic information. That’s not to say that the details of linguistic form are entirely absent from long-term memory