This study explored the representation that readers construct when advancing through the description of an unfolding occurrence. In 3 experiments, participants read narratives describing a sequence of events and at a certain moment were tested for the accessibility of an entity from a past event. Entities were less accessible when the temporal distance between that past event and the current now point in the described world was relatively long than when it was shorter. This effect occurred when temporal distance was varied in terms of the duration of an intervening event but not when it was varied in terms of a temporal shift. The results suggest that the representation constructed for the description of an unfolding occurrence mimics its temporal structure. This is consistent with a dynamic view of narrative comprehension.
This study investigated the representations that readers construct for narratives describing a sequence of events. Participants read narratives describing 4 successive events in chronological order (Event 1, Event 2, Event 3, Event 4 [E1, E2, E3, E4] Experiment 1) or in nonchronological order with E1 being mentioned in a flashback (E2, E3, E1, E4; Experiments 2-4). The information about the duration of E2 was manipulated, and the mental accessibility of E1 was tested at the end of a passage. All 4 experiments showed that E1 was less accessible if the text implied that it occurred a relatively long time ago in the described world compared with when it occurred a shorter time ago. This result suggests that readers construct a temporally organized representation even if the text structure does not suggest such an organization.
Zusammenfassung. Die Untersuchungsteilnehmer lasen Texte, in denen verschiedene Objekte im Umraum eines Protagonisten lokalisiert wurden. Indem sie die Perspektive des Protagonisten übernahmen, konstruierten die Untersuchungsteilnehmer egozentrische mentale Modelle der beschriebenen Objektanordnungen. Während der Testphase machten Umorientierungen des Protagonisten ein entsprechendes Updating des mentalen Models erforderlich. Wir prüften, ob auch solche Objekte im mentalen Modell unmittelbar egozentrisch lokalisiert werden, deren sprachliche Lokalisierung im Text nicht unmittelbar in Relation zum Protagonisten erfolgt, d. h. ob egozentrische Objektpositionen inferiert werden. In zwei Experimenten wurden die Texte und Testitems entweder visuell oder auditiv dargeboten. In einem dritten Experiment wurden die Texte visuell, die Testitems auditiv präsentiert. Wir fanden, daß Rezipienten bevorzugt sämtliche Objekte unmittelbar egozentrisch lokalisieren, daß aber das Lesen mit einem Updating des egozentrischen mentalen Modells interferiert und dadurch eine egozentrische Lokalisierung aller Objekte verhindert.
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