[...]... Processes and the Postulated “Internal Objects of Situation Models? 112 PART III: CONTRIBUTION OF READERS’ KNOWLEDGE TO THE ESTABLISHMENT OF GLOBAL COHERENCE 115 5 Establishing Global Coherence: An Account of Readers’ 119 Naive Theories of Causality 5.1 Establishing Local and Global Coherence: The Main Hypotheses 119 5.2 The Causal Network Model as Representative of Readers’ Naive Theories of Causality... not make On the other hand, the reader has limited attentional or working memory resources available to do so, and one crucial question that arose was what elements are activated at a particular point in the reading These two constraints, related to inference making (or the lack of it) and the allocation of attentional resources, have been accounted for by deeply investigating the process of reading... crucial semantic categories that are embedded in temporocausal or hierarchical relations I also develop the idea that the format (i.e., structure and relations) from which individuals elaborate their model guides and governs the internal characteristics of the model built (Johnson-Laird, 1983) and that people may routinely activate perceptual representations during language comprehension (Barsalou,... some situational dimensions are better represented than others, and I propose some arguments that could possibly lead to improving the explanatory power of this model In Situation Models and Levels of Coherence, I attempt to propose an integrated view of the various theoretical approaches to discourse comprehension, and in particular of situation- model building, as evidenced by empirical findings and. .. played by the activation of readers’ specific and general knowledge in the gradual emergence of a text interpretation My aim was to approach discourse understanding in a more unified way, and bring forward all the richness, complexity, and (even so) flexibility of this highest level of representation, the situation model This book will be useful to anyone, whether a researcher, a professor, a graduate... years It was not for a lack of appreciation for their importance The mental imagery notion has been around in psychology for many years and had found a vocal proponent in Paivio (1969) My guess is, rather, that it was the FOREWORD xvii lack of a suitable notation for mental images that would allow their use in computational models Linguists have provided psychology with workable notational schemas... temporal and causal relations between the states of affairs de3 4 CHAPTER 1 scribed: The reader is thought to build a causal path between the initial and final states of the text, with events and actions that describe the successive transitions between the states (Black & Bower, 1980; Schank, 1975; Trabasso & van den Broek, 1985) Still other authors have shown that referential coherence was achieved... as amodal (Gernsbacher, 1990) or as a structure that is analogous to that of the states of affairs it represents (Johnson-Laird, 1983) Another possibility is to view it in terms of perceptual and motor representations (Barsalou, 1993, 1999; Glenberg, 1997; Zwaan, 2004) No matter what representational format is adopted, the “internal structure” of a situation model should be the result of the reader’s... It has been widely demonstrated that readers use their “naive” theories about causality to understand a text and to construct a coherent representation of what it says There is thus no doubt that causality is a “necessary” component of situation models However, although emotions are crucial in everyday life events and interact with cognitive activities, they have been neglected in the past by researchers... 6 The Reader’s Mental Representation: Search for 137 Coherence or Passive Resonance? 6.1 Establishing Global Coherence: Situation Models as Retrieval Structures 140 PART IV: CONTRIBUTION OF THE READER’S KNOWLEDGE AND THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL ASPECT OF SITUATION MODELS: IMPORTANCE OF CAUSALITY AND EMOTION 149 7 Causal Inferences in the Reading Comprehension 151 Process 7.1 The Causal Inference Maker Model . class="bi x0 y0 w1 h0" alt="" SITUATION MODELS AND LEVELS OF COHERENCE Toward a Definition of Comprehension SITUATION MODELS AND LEVELS OF COHERENCE Toward. infringe. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Tapiero, Isabelle. Situation models and levels of coherence : toward a definition of comprehension