ABSTRACT

Rather than treating language as information to analyze syntactically and semantically and then store in memory, language is now seen as a set of processing instructions for how to construct a mental representation of the described situation. Claude Simon argued that computational models in cognitive science are ideally suited for explaining how texts evoke meanings in literary practice. There is a sense in which he is right. Cognitive science is an interdisciplinary field dedicated to the study of the ways organisms acquire, represent, manipulate, and use information embedded in their local environment in the production of behavior. Situation models emerge from the integration of information explicit in the surface structure of the text and a reader's knowledge base. A flying eagle has outstretched wings for soaring and flexibly, adapting to changes in speed, elevation, wind, and the locations and movements of targets and obstacles.