Gabriel A. Radvansky

Situation Models in Language Comprehension and Memory

This article reviews research on the use of situation models in language comprehension and memory retrieval over the past 15 years. Situation models are integrated mental representations of a described state of affairs. Significant progress has been made in the scientific understanding of how situation models are involved in language comprehension and memory retrieval. Much of this research focuses on establishing the existence of situation models, often by using tasks that assess one dimension of a situation model. However, the authors argue that the time has now come for researchers to begin to take the multidimensionality of situation models seriously. The authors offer a theoretical framework and some methodological observations that may help researchers to tackle this issue.

STUDIES OF DIRECTED FORGETTING IN OLDER ADULTS

Younger and older adults were compared in 4 directed forgetting experiments. These varied in the use of categorized versus unrelated word lists and in the use of item by item versus blocked remember-forget cueing procedures. Consistent with L. Hasher and R. T. Zackss (1988) hypothesis of impaired inhibitory mechanisms in older adults, a variety of findings indicated that this age group is less able than younger adults to suppress the processing and retrieval of items designated as to be forgotten (TBF). Specifically, in comparison with younger adults, older adults produced more TBF word intrusions on an immediate recall test (Experiments 1A and 1B), took longer to reject TBF items (relative to a neutral baseline) on an immediate recognition test (Experiment 3), and recalled (Experiments 1A, 1B, and 2) and recognized (Experiment 1B and 2) relatively more TBF items on delayed retention tests in which all studied items were designated as targets.

Situation models and aging

Younger and older adults were tested for their ability to process and retrieve information from texts. The authors focused on the construction and retrieval of situation models relative to other types of text representations. The results showed that during memory retrieval, younger adults showed superior memory for surface form and textbase knowledge (what the text was), whereas older adults had equivalent or superior memory for situation model information (what the text was about). The results also showed that during reading, older and younger adults were similar in their sensitivity to various aspects of the texts. Overall, these findings suggest that although there are age-related declines in the processing and memory for text-based information, for higher level representations, these abilities appear to be preserved. Several possibilities for why this is the case are discussed, including an in-depth consideration of one possibility that involves W. Kintschs (1988) construction-integration model.

Mental models and the fan effect

Explanations of data from fan effect experiments have been based on propositional network models. This article presents findings not readily predicted by such models. In particular, in three experiments we found that, during a speeded-recognition test, subjects retrieved facts about several objects associated with a single location faster than facts about several locations associated with a single object. Indeed, there was no fan effect in the former case despite the fact that there were an equivalent number of associations among concepts in both conditions. We suggest that such data are consistent with a mental model representational account.

Walking through doorways causes forgetting: Situation models and experienced space

We investigated the ability of people to retrieve information about objects as they moved through rooms in a virtual space. People were probed with object names that were either associated with the person (i.e., carried) or dissociated from the person (i.e., just set down). Also, people either did or did not shift spatial regions (i.e., go to a new room). Information about objects was less accessible when the objects were dissociated from the person. Furthermore, information about an object was also less available when there was a spatial shift. However, the spatial shift had a larger effect on memory for the currently associated object. These data are interpreted as being more supportive of a situation model explanation, following on work using narratives and film. Simpler memory-based accounts that do not take into account the context in which a person is embedded cannot adequately account for the results. This research was supported in part by a grant from the Army Research Institute, ARMY-DASW01-02-K-0003 and by funding from J. Chris Forsythe of Sandia National Laboratories.

Aging and situation model processing

Over the past several years, a number of studies have been done that assess processing at the level of the situation model in relation to issues of aging (Morrow, Leirer, & Altieri, 1992; Radvansky, Copeland, Berish, & Dijkstra, 2003; Radvansky, Copeland, & Zwaan, 2003; Stine-Morrow, Gagne, Morrow, & DeWall, 2004; Stine-Morrow, Morrow, & Leno, 2002). In contrast to age-related declines that have been demonstrated at surface form and textbase levels of processing, no such declines have been found in the creation and updating of situation models (Radvansky, 1999). This review focuses on the relevant factors in cognitive aging and situation model processing and places them within the larger frameworks of language processing, working memory capacity, and aging.

Memory retrieval and suppression: The inhibition of situation models

When people retrieve newly learned facts on a recognition test, they are often increasingly slowed by the number of other newly learned facts that have a concept in common with the probed fact. This is called the fan effect. Assuming that people are using situation models of the learned information, the author considers whether the inhibition of competing representations is one of the processes involved in the fan effect. Evidence was found for negative priming of related but irrelevant situation models, thus supporting the idea that the inhibition of highly related memory traces is used in long-term memory retrieval. As such, this is a form of retrieval-based inhibition.

Working memory and situation model updating.

Situation model updating requires managing the availability of information as a function of its relevance to the current situation. This is thought to involve some aspect of working memory. The present study assesses the relation between updating ability and various measures of working memory span or capacity. In addition, a primitive general measure of situation model processing, a situation model identification test, and its relation to updating ability was also assessed. The present experiment used a version of a paradigm developed by Glenberg, Meyer, and Lindem (1987) to assess updating. Although updating was observed in both anaphoric reading time and recognition test accuracy measures, the reading time measure was relatively weak. Importantly, the updating effect on the recognition test was unrelated to working memory capacity. In contrast, updating was related to performance on the situation model identification task. Specifically, people who were good at model processing were better able to keep associated objects available than were people who were less adept. There were no differences in the maintenance of dissociated objects. These results suggest that the relationship between situation model processing and working memory capacity is relatively weak.

Coping with stereotype threat: Denial as an impression management strategy

Four experiments tested the hypothesis that people who are concerned with impression management cope with stereotype threat through denial. Consistent with this hypothesis, temporary employees threatened by a stereotype of incompetence (Study 1) and hostel-dwelling older adults (Study 2) were more likely to deny incompetence if they were high in impression management. African Americans (Study 3) showed a similar pattern of denying cognitive incompetence, which emerged primarily when they were interviewed by a White experimenter and had attended a predominantly Black high school. In Study 4, White students who expected to take an IQ test and were threatened by a stereotype of being less intelligent than Asians were more likely to deny that intelligence is important if they were high in impression management.

Age, Race, and Implicit Prejudice Using Process Dissociation to Separate the Underlying Components

Older adults express greater prejudice than younger adults, but it is not clear why. In a community-based sample, we found that older White adults demonstrated more racial prejudice on an implicit measure, the race Implicit Association Test, than did younger adults. Process-dissociation procedures indicated that this difference in implicit prejudice was due to older adults having less control of their automatic prejudicial associations rather than stronger automatic prejudicial associations. Furthermore, this age difference in control was mediated by age-related deficits in inhibitory ability. White participants showed stronger automatic prejudicial associations than did Black participants.