Arthur M. Glenberg (1992) When Minimalism is not Enough:mental Models in Reading . Psycoloquy: 3(64) Reading Inference 1 (2)
Versions: ASCII formatted
Psycoloquy 3(64): When Minimalism is not Enough:mental Models in Reading

WHEN MINIMALISM IS NOT ENOUGH:MENTAL MODELS IN READING
COMPREHENSION
Target Article on Reading-Inference-2

Arthur M. Glenberg
Department of Psychology
University of Wisconsin - Madison
Madison, WI 53706

Shashi Mathew
Department of Psychology
Harvard University
Cambridge, MA 02138

glenberg@macc.wisc.edu mathew@isr.Harvard.edu

Abstract

McKoon and Ratcliff (1992) contrast a minimalist theory of reading with a constructionist or mental-model theory "that readers automatically construct a full representation of the real-life situation described by a text." We take issue with three aspects of McKoon and Ratcliff's arguments. First, the contrast between the minimalist and the mental-model account is unwarranted: The minimalist account applies to automatic inferences, whereas mental models are not often constructed automatically. Second, mental models are not full representations of real-life situations. Last, we report the results of two experiments demonstrating problems with their "salience" account of phenomena previously attributed to mental models.

Keywords

reading comprehension, mental models, inferences, minimalism, salience

References