The construction of visual–spatial situation models in children’s reading and their relation to reading comprehension

Abstract

Readers construct mental models of situations described by text to comprehend what they read, updating these situation models based on explicitly described and inferred information about causal, temporal, and spatial relations. Fluent adult readers update their situation models while reading narrative text based in part on spatial location information that is consistent with the perspective of the protagonist. The current study investigates whether children update spatial situation models in a similar way, whether there are age-related changes in children's formation of spatial situation models during reading, and whether measures of the ability to construct and update spatial situation models are predictive of reading comprehension. Typically-developing children from ages 9 through 16 years (n=81) were familiarized with a physical model of a marketplace. Then the model was covered, and children read stories that described the movement of a protagonist through the marketplace and were administered items requiring memory for both explicitly stated and inferred information about the character's movements. Accuracy of responses and response times were evaluated. Results indicated that: (a) location and object information during reading appeared to be activated and updated not simply from explicit text-based information but from a mental model of the real world situation described by the text; (b) this pattern showed no age-related differences; and (c) the ability to update the situation model of the text based on inferred information, but not explicitly stated information, was uniquely predictive of reading comprehension after accounting for word decoding.

Children's Enactment of Characters' Movements: A Novel Measure of Spatial Situation Model Representations and Indicator of Comprehension

“…Despite the finding that children demonstrated stair movements on inferred sentences only 25% of the time overall, this ability was nevertheless significantly predictive of their narrative comprehension abilities. This finding corroborates those of Barnes et al (), although they used a different experimental paradigm as well as a different standardized comprehension measure that relied upon a different processing medium (reading vs. listening). In their study, children's ability to infer a character's movement along an unmentioned path was predictive of their reading comprehension abilities.…”

“…The latter findings, which support an embodied view of language processing, suggest that providing children who may not spontaneously visualize and mentally simulate aspects of narratives with external supports can help them to eventually be able to do so. Together, our findings, along with those of Barnes et al () and Glenberg et al (), suggest that the ability to construct spatial situation models and draw necessary inferences may be an important ability underlying comprehension.…”

“…Note that although the construction of spatial situation models in Barnes et al's study was not spontaneous, children's application of the model when representing unmentioned paths was. Unlike the children in Barnes et al's () study, the children completing the character movement task did not have a physical model available to them. The character movement task was therefore more demanding, but also more representative of real‐life scenarios, as children are not typically given a map or model of a story's setting.…”

Readability and Visuals in Medical Research Information Forms for Children and Adolescents

“…Reading comprehension involves not only the ability to understand the words in the text, as defined by readability and vocabulary, but also the ability to process the input and create a mental model of the information (Barnes, Raghubar, Faulkner, & Denton, 2014;Mayer, 2001). The cognitive theory of multimedia learning from Mayer (2001) describes how input is processed, divided in three assumptions.…”

“…The ability to update a mental model, based on inferences from the text, is essential to reading comprehension (Carlson, Seipel, & McMaster, 2014). Children are already capable of making inferences from text, but this ability improves with age (Barnes et al, 2014). In addition, the use of working memory, necessary for representational holding, improves significantly during development, leading to better reading comprehension (Pike et al, 2010).…”