COMPREHENSION WHILE MISSING THE POINT: MORE ON MINIMALISM AND MODELS
Reply to Carreiras, Fernandez & Carriedo, Haberlandt and
Zwaan & Graesser on Glenberg & Mathew on Reading-Inference

Abstract

In this Reply I address four issues raised in the commentaries. First, that Glenberg & Mathew (1992) were "unfair" in one of their empirical criticisms of McKoon & Ratcliff's (1992) salience account. Second, a call for a consideration of nonspatial mental models. Third, I will use these ideas to elaborate on a distinction between inferences proper and information available from the representation that does not seem to have a direct counterpart in the text. Fourth, I will extend discussion of the "survivor effect." The ideas I sketch, along with an analysis provided by Barton & Sanford, provide a way of thinking about how this can occur. Finally I discuss at least two ways in which space can be important in language comprehension. First there is brute force: given the right incentives, we can form mental models of space, map arbitrary nonspatial dimensions into spatial ones, and derive spatial inferences. Second, according to Lakoff's Spatialization of Form hypothesis, abstract ideas can be understood by conceptualizing them using structured K-schemas.

Keywords

References