MENTAL MODELS IN MEMORY FOR VERBAL DESCRI PTIONS OF SPATIAL ARRANGEMENTS - TEMPORAL ASPECTS OF MODEL CONSTRUCTION AND USE

Based on an experiment by Mani and Johnson-Laird (1982), and on its re plication by Dutke (1993), this study investigated how time pressure a ffects the construction of mental models. 57 female and male subjects learned verbal descriptions of spatially arranged objects and had to c omplete an unexpected recognition test. The subjects were exposed to t ime pressure either during learning or during recognition. A control g roup was allowed to work at their own pace in both phases. The results supported the ''cross-over-effect'' between the representation of the text and the mental model of the described scene reported by Mani and Johnson-Laird (1982), but only when there was time pressure during th e recognition test. The distinction between text- and schema-based men tal models proposed by Dutke (1993) is also supported, as it was demon strated that the time requirements were different for constructing tex t- or schema-based models.