Summary
The theory of mental models is the most prominent approach for explaining the underlying cognitive processes in spatial relational inference. Of the three phases of model construction, model inspection, and model variation, this article focuses mainly on the first one. The phase of model construction in spatial relational inference tasks based on the interval relations of Allen (1983) is investigated in two experiments. The first experiment corroborated the hypothesis of the existence of generally preferred mental models. The second experiment showed evidence for the causal influence of preferred mental models in verification tasks of three-term series problems. Based on these results, the issue concerning the kind of representation of spatial information in mental models is tackled. Cognitive modeling based on insertion operations for beginning and end-points of intervals by means of a spatial focus, i. e., using only ordinal information, corresponds clearly to the empirical preferences. Finally, we discuss the results with respect to the prediction of inferences in other inference tasks and problems concerning the processes in the phases of model inspection and model variation.
Zusammenfassung
Die Theorie mentaler Modelle ist der derzeit wichtigste Ansatz zur Erklärung der kognitiven Prozesse beim räumlichrelationalen Schließen. Von den in der Theorie unterschiedenen Phasen Modellkonstruktion, -inspektion und -variation beschäftigt sich die vorliegende Arbeit v. a. mit der Phase der Modell-konstruktion, die anhand der Intervallrelationen von Allen (1983) in 2 Experimenten untersucht wurde. Im 1. Experiment ließ sich die Existenz allgemeiner präferierter mentaler Modelle empirisch belegen. Im 2. Experiment konnte deren kausale Wirksamkeit im Rahmen von Verifikationsaufgaben bei Three-term-series-Problemen nachgewiesen werden. Anschließend wird der Frage nach der Art der im mentalen Modell repräsentierten räumlichen Information nachgegangen. Eine kognitive Modellierung, die lediglich auf Einfügeoperationen von Anfangs- und Endpunkten von Intervallen mittels eines räumlichen Fokus basiert, also nur ordinale Information berücksichtigt, weist eine hohe Übereinstimmung mit den empirisch ermittelten Präferenzen auf. Eine Diskussion der bisher gewonnenen Erkenntnisse für die Vorhersage der Performanz in anderen Inferenzaufgaben und Fragestellungen im Zusammenhang mit den beteiligten Prozessen in den Phasen Modellinspektion und Modellvariation bildet den Abschluß.
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Rauh, R., Schlieder, C. & Knauff, M. Präferierte mentale Modelle beim räumlich-relationalen Schließen: Empirie und kognitive Modellierung. Kognit. Wiss. 6, 21–34 (1996). https://doi.org/10.1007/s001970050027
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s001970050027