Processes Involved in the Integration of Pictures and Discourse

摘要

There is no doubt that pictures can enhance text comprehension, and sometimes theeffect is extraordinary. But how do pictures have this effect. One hypothesis is that pictures help to structure a spatial mental model. Indeed, initial results were strongly compatible with this hypothesis and contrary to others. Subsequent research was directed at characterizing the mental model. One possibility is that the mental model has a Euclidean structure and that ft is formed using the spatial component of working memory. Although a type of working memory is clearly involved in mental model formation, three types of research have demonstrated that the mental model is unlikely to be Euclidean. First, the degree of priming between elements of the mental model is unrelated to Euclidean distance (see Kramer, Langston, Glenberg); instead, functional distance seems to matter. Second, there is little benefit produced by readers producing drawings when they read unillustrated texts (see Robertson Glenberg). Third, a careful analysis of memory and its functioning reveals that accounts based on the concept of embodiment provide a more satisfactory explanation than accounts based on considering mental models to be constructed in an unstructured Euclidean space (see Glenberg).