MENTAL MODEL

A higher-level mental representation of the state of affairs conveyed by a text. It includes propositional (‘core’) meaning plus additional information contributed by the reader/listener and based upon inference and world knowledge. A model is continuously updated as more information from the text is integrated into it. The terms situational model and referential representation are used for very similar concepts.

The process of constructing a mental model is elaborative (adding inferences to achieve coherence), integrative (adding and relating incoming information) and selective (reducing stored information to what is essential/relevant). At the selective stage, the reader’s goal may be important. Readers who are told to read a text about a house as if they were burglars will construct a different mental model from those who read it as potential purchasers.

Evidence confirms that readers/listeners form representations that are more detailed than purely propositional ones. A short while after reading or hearing a sentence, they may be unable to distinguish information which the text contains from information which they themselves have added by way of inference.

However, there is some disagreement as to the extent and nature of the inferences that a reader/listener adds. Those who take a constructivist view believe that the mental representation includes all inferences that are made; while those who take a minimalist view assert that only a limited number of necessary inferences are added in to the model. There is some evidence to suggest that bridging inferences are stored as part of an ongoing mental model, whereas elaborative inferences may not be. See inference.

In some situations, the mental model that is constructed is indeterminate. We might choose the most likely model from among several possibilities; or we might satisfy ourselves with a model that is less than complete but is sufficient for our purposes. It has been suggested that, in cases of indeterminacy, we may not construct a model at all, but rely on a representation that incorporates some of the wording of the text. However, there are also clearly instances when we satisfy ourselves with an incomplete mental model because of the complexity of the information we have to process– or because a given task only demands that we process the text at a relatively shallow level.

See also: Inference, Meaning construction, Proposition, Schema theory, Story grammar

Further reading: Garnham (1985: Chap. 7); Johnson-Laird (1983: 243–50, 370–87)

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مواضيع ذات صلة

Problems with the dictionary view

The dictionary view

Dictionaries versus encyclopaedias

The encyclopaedic view of meaning

Embodiment and conceptual structure summary

Schematic systems

Semantic structure

Conceptual structure

Image schemas and abstract thought

Properties of image schemas

What is an image schema?

Image schemas