PSYC 432 Lecture Notes - Lecture 13: Mental Models, Carol Folt, Referring Expression
Document Summary
A conceptual representation of the situation that a sentence (or discourse) evokes. It can also include a representation of nonlinguistic information from the context, and inferences. Goes beyond just the language itself: basic propositional information comes from the linguistic input (agent, patient, event) Who was involved, what their semantic role was, and what the event was. Ask questions about why, where, how long, who else, etc: mental model is a representation of the situation, not just the words. Conceptual representation, the situation described, and inferences: example: macdonald and just (1989) study. Simon baked some cookies and {some bread, no bread} Bread is said in both, but one it is included and another is excluded. Response time is faster to info that is present in the mental model. People are slower to recognize negated objects: inferences bransford et al. (cid:883)97(cid:884) turtles and fish example. As we read sentences, we create a mental picture.
