Comprehension strategies in the development of a mental model

Abstract

It is generally assumed that the comprehension strategy used in the development of a mental model for narrative texts focuses on information that is relevant to the protagonist. Experiments 1a and 1b confirmed that readers remain sensitive to the location of the protagonist even when strategies based on text-base level representations predict this information should not be active. Experiments 2 and 3 tested the stronger claim that readers adopt the perspective of the protagonist. Ss did not notice information that was contradictory from the perspective of the protagonist unless explicitly instructed to adopt that perspective. It was concluded that, at the level of the mental model, readers focus on information relevant to the protagonist but that they do not adopt the perspective of the protagonist unless characteristics of the text induce such a strategy.