Coherent Mental Model Research Articles

Uncontrollability, depression, and the construction of mental models.

Three studies examined mental model generation after preexposure to uncontrollability and in a depressive state. The purpose of the experiments was to test the implications of the cognitive exhaustion model, applying an explicit conceptualization of social mental models and a process-tracing method developed by U. von Hecker (1997). An experimental situation was created for observation of consecutive, rule-based construction steps as a function of input diagnosticity, and for the quality assessment of constructed mental models. The findings show that participants preexposed to uncontrollability, as well as depressed students, were able, as were controls, to identify rule-relevant information needed for model construction. However, they were less able than control participants to engage in a more cognitively demanding and generative step of processing (i.e., in integrating the pieces of input information into a coherent mental model of sentiment relations).

Uncontrollability, depression, and the construction of mental models.

Three studies examined mental model generation after preexposure to uncontrollability and in a depressive state. The purpose of the experiments was to test the implications of the cognitive exhaustion model, applying an explicit conceptualization of social mental models and a process-tracing method developed by U. von Hecker (1997). An experimental situation was created for observation of consecutive, rule-based construction steps as a function of input diagnosticity, and for the quality assessment of constructed mental models. The findings show that participants preexposed to uncontrollability, as well as depressed students, were able, as were controls, to identify rule-relevant information needed for model construction. However, they were less able than control participants to engage in a more cognitively demanding and generative step of processing (i.e., in integrating the pieces of input information into a coherent mental model of sentiment relations).

Students' Understanding of Three-Dimensional Rectangular Arrays of Cubes

The present study extends previous research in this area by providing a more elaborate and theoretical description of students' solution strategies and errors in dealing with 3-D cube arrays. It describes several cognitive constructions and operations that seem to be required for students to conceptualize and enumerate the cubes in such arrays, exploring in depth general cognitive operations such as coordination, integration, and “structuring” as they are manifested in a spatial context. It describes how, in dealing with 3-D rectangular arrays, students' spatial thinking is related to their enumeration strategies. The findings suggest that students' initial conception of a 3-D rectangular array of cubes is as an uncoordinated set of faces. Eventually, as students become capable of coordinating views, they see the array as space filling and strive to restructure it as such. Those who complete a global restructuring of the array use layering strategies. Those in transition use strategies that indicate that their restructuring is local rather than global. Finally, the data suggest that many students are unable to enumerate the cubes in a 3-D array because they cannot coordinate the separate views of the array and integrate them to construct one coherent mental model of the array.

Spatial descriptions and referential continuity

Three experiments were carried out in which subjects drew diagrams to depict spatial layouts corresponding to such three-sentence verbal descriptions as: apple is on the left of the banana. The banana is in front of the carrot. The carrot is on the left of the doughnut. In Experiment 1, a referentially continuous description in which each adjacent pair of sentences had a referent in common required less listening time and elicited more correct diagrams than a referentially discontinuous description in which the first and second sentences had no referent in common. In Experiment 2, descriptions in which the second and third sentences had no referent in common were no more difficult to remember than continuous descriptions. Both, however, were considerably easier than the discontinuous descriptions. In Experiment 3, the subjects read the descriptions rather than heard them. Its results replicated the earlier findings, and the times taken to read the individual sentences in a description suggested that subjects try to integrate each incoming sentence into a single coherent mental model, and that those sentences which cannot be immediately integrated are represented in a propositional form.