ABSTRACT
This chapter is about how people understand situations and events, and how this understanding affects how they think about the world and their interaction with other people. The larger aim is to provide some insights into how augmented cognition can be better achieved by a more thorough understanding of how people conceive of and communicate about events. We do this by taking a perspective on event comprehension and memory known as situation model theory ( Johnson-Laird, 1983; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983; Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998). We first provide a brief overview of the critical components of situation model theory and the aim of efforts in augmented cognition. Then we discuss some research on how people are able to identify situations in which they interact with strangers. After this we describe how a person’s understanding of a dynamic, ongoing event affects their ability to perform in that situation, in this case, an aerial combat simulation. Finally, we address issues of how the structure of the ongoing situation is aided or hindered by various types of augmented cognition assistance.
