| Research on text-reading comprehension is an important and special part of cognitive psychology. Recently, researchers focused their attention on the processing rules of situation models, which is higher level of text representation, while the research on updating of spatial situation models is the emphasis.Some researchers argued that the update of spatial situation models is backward processing by clue, but the others believed that it is on-line updating without clue. Based on review of previous literature, we illuminated the nature of updating spatial situation models, which is a flexible processing influenced by interaction between internal factors and exterior ones, and offered the evidences of this viewpoint by sets of experiments.The main goal of this paper is to find out the rules and the effective factors in updating spatial dimension of situation model. The dissertation is composed of two parts, the literature summary and the experiment research.The literature summary is divided into three sections. First, we introduced the history of text-cognitive research in West, including theory, method and content, and pointed out the main agreement and dispute about this field. Second, we narrated current researches on situation model, which is the central content of text-research, including its' structure and processing. Finally, we mostly analyzed the cognitive research on spatial situation model, and then indicated the limitation ofeach theory in the past. Based on the review of literature, we advanced a new viewpoint about updating of spatial situation models, which suggested that the update of spatial situation models is a flexible processing, it may be done by clue, or without clue and it may be a online processing, or a off-line one. The nature of update is decided by the interaction between internal factors and exterior ones of spatial dimension.The experiments were designed to test systemically the hypotheses. We took similar research format in all experiments. A typical narrative described the protagonist interacting with one object, which was either consistent or inconsistent with his or her location. After participants finished reading text, we used recognition probe words to test the accessibility of both consistent and inconsistent objects and concluded the traits and rules for updating of spatial situation models. The experiments were also divided into three sections.The first section is Experiment 1. Different character of updating situation models in different research techniques was inquired. The results of Experiment la, Ib, Ic showed that the possibility of updating spatial situation models in the condition, which reading material were presented by key-press, is more than one in the condition that the reading material were presented automatically by computer. Moreover, the level of update was changed along with probe-word location in text.The second section is composed of Experiment 2 and Experiment 3. The purpose of these Experiments was to probe into the influences of structural and functional factors in the course of situation models updating. The results of Experiment 2a and Experiment 2b showed that distinct and integral statement for the protagonist's position and surrounding, such as descriptive way in perspective of protagonist and elaborative narrative for the objects in spatial setting, can facilitate updating of spatial situation models. Experiment 3a, 3b demonstrated that interaction of functionality between entities play a important role in the processing of updating of spatial situation models, which was influenced by the level of matching between role and object and distance between attention focus and object.The third section included Experiment 4 and Experiment 5. In this part, how the time and goal, which were factors out of spatial dimension, affect update of spatial situation models was inquired. InExperiment 4a and Experiment 4b, the results of a recognition task demonstrated that updating of spatial dimension were influenced by time interval...
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