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Children's Enactment of Characters' Movements: A Novel Measure of Spatial Situation Model Representations and Indicator of Comprehension

Nyhout, A., O'Neill, D.K. (2017) Children's Enactment of Characters' Movements: A Novel Measure of Spatial Situation Model Representations and Indicator of Comprehension. Mind, Brain, and Education, 11 (3). pp. 112-120. ISSN 1751-2271. (doi:10.1111/mbe.12142) (KAR id:81938)

Abstract

A story's space or setting often determines and constrains the actions of its characters. We report on an experiment with 106 children of 7-8 years old in which, using a novel enactment task, we measured children's representation of a story character's movement during story listening. We found that children were more likely to enact movements that were explicitly stated in the passage than those they had to infer based on their situation model representation of the house and the character's location within it. We found that this ability to infer movements was significantly predictive of children's narrative comprehension after controlling for oral comprehension, vocabulary, working memory, and enactment of explicitly stated movements. We discuss the role of spatial situation models in comprehension and potential future uses for this enactment task in research and classrooms. © 2017 International Mind, Brain, and Education Society and Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/mbe.12142
Additional information: Unmapped bibliographic data: LA - English [Field not mapped to EPrints] J2 - Mind Brain EDucation [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - Department of Psychology, University of Waterloo, Canada [Field not mapped to EPrints] AD - Dr. Eric Jackman Institute of Child Study, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M5S 1V6, Canada [Field not mapped to EPrints] DB - Scopus [Field not mapped to EPrints] M3 - Article [Field not mapped to EPrints]
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Psychology
Depositing User: Angela Nyhout
Date Deposited: 01 Jul 2020 12:36 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Dec 2022 06:54 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/81938 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

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