Mental Representations of the Text Surface, the Text Base, and the Situation Model in Auditory and Audiovisual Texts in 7-, 9-, and 11-Year-Olds

2016 ◽  
Vol 55 (3) ◽  
pp. 290-304 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wienke Wannagat ◽  
Gesine Waizenegger ◽  
Juliane Hauf ◽  
Gerhild Nieding
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Situation Model ◽  
Text Base

scholarly journals Similar neural networks respond to coherence during comprehension and production of discourse

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matias Morales ◽  
Tanvi Patel ◽  
Andres Tamm ◽  
Martin Pickering ◽  
Paul Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Situation Model ◽  
Neural Correlates ◽  
Control Network ◽  
Semantic Activation ◽  
Default Mode ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Global Coherence ◽  
Speech Content

When comprehending discourse, listeners engage default mode regions associated with integrative semantic processing to construct a situation model of its content. We investigated how similar networks are engaged when we produce, as well as comprehend, discourse. During fMRI, participants spoke about a series of specific topics and listened to discourse on other topics. We tested how activation was predicted by natural fluctuations in the global coherence of the discourse, i.e., the degree to which utterances conformed to the expected topic. The neural correlates of coherence were similar across speaking and listening, particularly in default mode regions. This network showed greater activation when less coherent speech was heard or produced, reflecting updating of mental representations when discourse did not conform to the expected topic. In contrast, regions that exert control over semantic activation showed task-specific effects, correlating negatively with coherence during listening but not during production. Participants who showed greater activation in left inferior prefrontal cortex also produced more coherent discourse, suggesting a specific role for this region in goal-directed regulation of speech content. Results suggest strong alignment of discourse representations during speaking and listening. However, they indicate that the semantic control network plays different roles in comprehension and production.

Individual Differences in Structure Building: Impacts on Comprehension and Learning, Theoretical Underpinnings, and Support for Less Able Structure Builders

2021 ◽  
pp. 174569162110007
Author(s):  
Mark A. McDaniel ◽  
Elizabeth J. Marsh ◽  
Reshma Gouravajhala
Keyword(s):  
Learning Outcomes ◽  
Individual Difference ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Situation Model ◽  
Theoretical Work ◽  
Building Structure ◽  
Structure Building ◽  
Everyday Activities ◽  
Lower Structure ◽  
Factual Content

In this article, we highlight an underappreciated individual difference: structure building. Structure building is integral to many everyday activities and involves creating coherent mental representations of conversations, texts, pictorial stories, and other events. People vary in this ability in a way not generally captured by other better known concepts and individual difference measures. Individuals with lower structure-building ability consistently perform worse on a range of comprehension and learning measures than do individuals with higher structure-building ability, both in the laboratory and in the classroom. Problems include a range of comprehension processes, including encoding factual content, inhibiting irrelevant information, and constructing a cohesive situation model of a text or conversation. Despite these problems, recent research is encouraging in that techniques to improve the learning outcomes for low-ability structure builders have been identified. We argue that the accumulated research warrants the recognition of structure building as an important individual difference in cognitive functioning and that additional theoretical work is needed to understand the underpinnings of structure-building deficits.

scholarly journals Belief-biased representations of textual information in bilinguals: Language as a source characteristic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mohammad N. Karimi ◽  
Tobias Richter
Keyword(s):  
Situation Model ◽  
Recognition Task ◽  
Situation Models ◽  
Prior Beliefs ◽  
Consistency Effect ◽  
Text Base ◽  
Base Strength ◽  
Source Characteristic ◽  
Consistent Information ◽  
Consistency Effects

AbstractWhen pursuing a controversial socio-scientific issue, readers are expected to construct balanced representations that include overlapping and opposing information. However, readers’ mental representations are often biased towards their prior beliefs. Previous research on such text-belief consistency effects have been conducted mostly in monolingual contexts. The present study investigated whether document language, as a source characteristic, moderates text-belief consistency effects at the situation-model and text-base representation levels. Eighty-seven bilingual readers—selected from a larger initial sample—read two documents on the global spread of English. The documents were either presented in participants’ first (Persian) and second (English) languages, or one was presented in Persian and the other one in English. A recognition task was used to assess situation-model strength and text-base strength. Overall, participants built stronger situation models for the belief-consistent information as opposed to belief-inconsistent information. However, document language moderated the text-belief consistency effect. When both texts were presented in English, the text-belief consistency effect was smaller than when both texts were presented in Persian. For the combination of English and Persian texts, the text-belief consistency effect was enlarged when the belief-consistent text was presented in English and the belief-inconsistent text in Persian but disappeared when the text-belief consistent text was presented in Persian and the belief-inconsistent text in English. These results suggest that document language can serve as a strong credibility cue that can eliminate belief effects, at least when the document language and the controversial issue are inherently related.

scholarly journals A Method for Automatically Analyzing Intelligent Tutoring System Dialogues with Coh-Metrix

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chrstopher R. Wolfe ◽  
Colin L. Widmer ◽  
Christine V. Torrese ◽  
Mitchell Dandignac
Keyword(s):  
Breast Cancer ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Intelligent Tutoring ◽  
Intelligent Tutoring System ◽  
Situation Model ◽  
Tutoring System ◽  
Web Based ◽  
Mixed Support ◽  
Medical Materials

We developed a method for using Coh-Metrix to automatically analyze tutorial dialogues. Coh-Metrix, a web-based tool for automatically evaluating text, is freely available to researchers. We applied the method to 190 tutorial dialogues between women and BRCA Gist from two experiments. BRCA Gist is an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to help women make decisions about genetic testing for breast cancer risk. Tutorial dialogues scored high on measures of textual cohesion (deep cohesion, referential cohesion, and the composite variable formality). They also scored high on measures of the situation model (LSA verb overlap and causal verb and causal particle). However, there was mixed support for the hypothesis that higher scores on Coh-Metrix variables would predict subsequent comprehension. A Coh-Metrix principle is that the observable cohesion of a text is a reliable guide to the coherence of the reader’s mental representation of that text. Thus it appears that interacting with BRCA Gist helped people form coherent mental representations of complex medical materials. We conclude that Coh-Metrix can be used to reliably assess tutorial dialogues and make inferences about the mental representations of people engaged in conversation with an ITS based on observable characteristics of the statements people make.

Mental representation of economic crisis in Italian and Swiss samples 1The authors would like to thank Maurizio Mistri for his help in the construction of items. This research was supported by a grant from the Italian Murst (ex 40%).

2001 ◽  
Vol 60 (1) ◽  
pp. 11-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lucia Savadori ◽  
Eraldo Nicotra ◽  
Rino Rumiati ◽  
Roberto Tamborini
Keyword(s):  
Economic Crisis ◽  
Mental Representation ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
National Context ◽  
Cluster Procedure ◽  
Total N ◽  
Two Samples ◽  
Important Symptom

The content and structure of mental representation of economic crises were studied and the flexibility of the structure in different social contexts was tested. Italian and Swiss samples (Total N = 98) were compared with respect to their judgments as to how a series of concrete examples of events representing abstract indicators were relevant symptoms of economic crisis. Mental representations were derived using a cluster procedure. Results showed that the relevance of the indicators varied as a function of national context. The growth of unemployment was judged to be by far the most important symptom of an economic crisis but the Swiss sample judged bankruptcies as more symptomatic than Italians who considered inflation, raw material prices and external accounts to be more relevant. A different clustering structure was found for the two samples: the locations of unemployment and gross domestic production indicators were the main differences in representations.

The Impact of Visual Stereotypes on Judgments about Rape

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (3) ◽  
pp. 133-140
Author(s):  
Robert Busching ◽  
Johannes Lutz
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Irrelevant Information ◽  
Clear Distinction ◽  
Rape Myth ◽  
Facial Features ◽  
Reverse Correlation ◽  
Correlation Technique ◽  
Specific Effects ◽  
Legal Judgments ◽  
The Impact

Abstract. Legally irrelevant information like facial features is used to form judgments about rape cases. Using a reverse-correlation technique, it is possible to visualize criminal stereotypes and test whether these representations influence judgments. In the first step, images of the stereotypical faces of a rapist, a thief, and a lifesaver were generated. These images showed a clear distinction between the lifesaver and the two criminal representations, but the criminal representations were rather similar. In the next step, the images were presented together with rape scenarios, and participants (N = 153) indicated the defendant’s level of liability. Participants with high rape myth acceptance scores attributed a lower level of liability to a defendant who resembled a stereotypical lifesaver. However, no specific effects of the image of the stereotypical rapist compared to the stereotypical thief were found. We discuss the findings with respect to the influence of visual stereotypes on legal judgments and the nature of these mental representations.

Do Writing Directions Influence How People Map Space onto Time?

2018 ◽  
Vol 77 (4) ◽  
pp. 173-184
Author(s):  
Wenxing Yang ◽  
Ying Sun
Keyword(s):  
Mental Representations ◽  
Space Time ◽  
Horizontal Axis ◽  
Causal Role ◽  
Writing Systems ◽  
Temporal Cognition ◽  
Japanese Speakers ◽  
Psychological Experiments ◽  
Vertical Up

Abstract. The causal role of a unidirectional orthography in shaping speakers’ mental representations of time seems to be well established by many psychological experiments. However, the question of whether bidirectional writing systems in some languages can also produce such an impact on temporal cognition remains unresolved. To address this issue, the present study focused on Japanese and Taiwanese, both of which have a similar mix of texts written horizontally from left to right (HLR) and vertically from top to bottom (VTB). Two experiments were performed which recruited Japanese and Taiwanese speakers as participants. Experiment 1 used an explicit temporal arrangement design, and Experiment 2 measured implicit space-time associations in participants along the horizontal (left/right) and the vertical (up/down) axis. Converging evidence gathered from the two experiments demonstrate that neither Japanese speakers nor Taiwanese speakers aligned their vertical representations of time with the VTB writing orientation. Along the horizontal axis, only Japanese speakers encoded elapsing time into a left-to-right linear layout, which was commensurate with the HLR writing direction. Therefore, two distinct writing orientations of a language could not bring about two coexisting mental time lines. Possible theoretical implications underlying the findings are discussed.

Images of Aging in the Psychotherapeutic Context

GeroPsych ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 28 (2) ◽  
pp. 47-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Eva-Marie Kessler ◽  
Catherine E. Bowen
Keyword(s):  
Old Age ◽  
Diagnostic Tests ◽  
Aging Process ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Later Life ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Psychotherapeutic Process ◽  
Images Of Aging ◽  
Client Communication

Both psychotherapists and their clients have mental representations of old age and the aging process. In this conceptual review, we draw on available research from gerontology, social and developmental psychology, and communication science to consider how these “images of aging” may affect the psychotherapeutic process with older clients. On the basis of selected empirical findings we hypothesize that such images may affect the pathways to psychotherapy in later life, therapist-client communication, client performance on diagnostic tests as well as how therapists select and apply a therapeutic method. We posit that interventions to help both older clients and therapists to reflect on their own images of aging may increase the likelihood of successful treatment. We conclude by making suggestions for future research.

The Moving-IAT

2017 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 445-452
Author(s):  
Monika Fleischhauer
Keyword(s):  
Internal Consistency ◽  
Personality Assessment ◽  
Block Structure ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Indirect Measures ◽  
Attitude Research ◽  
Self Reports ◽  
Implicit Personality ◽  
Single Block ◽  
Psychometric Quality

Abstract. Accumulated evidence suggests that indirect measures such as the Implicit Association Test (IAT) provide an increment in personality assessment explaining behavioral variance over and above self-reports. Likewise, it has been shown that there are several unwanted sources of variance in personality IATs potentially reducing their psychometric quality. For example, there is evidence that individuals use imagery-based facilitation strategies while performing the IAT. That is, individuals actively create mental representations of their person that fit to the category combination in the respective block, but do not necessarily fit to their implicit personality self-concept. A single-block IAT variant proposed by attitude research, where compatible and incompatible trials are presented in one and the same block, may prevent individuals from using such facilitation strategies. Consequently, for the trait need for cognition (NFC), a new single-block IAT version was developed (called Moving-IAT) and tested against the standard IAT for differences in internal consistency and predictive validity in a sample of 126 participants. Although the Moving-IAT showed lower internal consistency, its predictive value for NFC-typical behavior was higher than that of the standard IAT. Given individual’s strategy reports, the single-block structure of the Moving-IAT indeed reduces the likelihood of imagery-based strategies.

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