The Interaction of Goal and Temporal Shifts in Situation Models

Situation model theory is a framework for understanding the representations of deep comprehension of information derived from a text (see Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). Several components of a situation model (including space, time, causality, entities, and information and protagonists) are updated into the situation model. The inter-relation of the time and goal dimensions was investigated in two experiments. Although goal and time information are typically related to one another in a narrative (given that goals take time to complete), no work has investigated how changes along these dimensions interact within the situation model. Three plausible relations among the dimensions (no relation, augmenting, and weakening) were investigated by manipulating discontinuities in goal and/or time information within a narrative. The results supported a weakening relation of the dimensions, meaning that a discontinuity along one dimension reduced the observed effect of a discontinuity along the other. Potential reasons for a weakening relation are discussed.