The role of perceptual memory and autobiographical memory in embodied story text comprehension

Abstract

This article focused on the role of perceptual memory and autobiographical memory in the embodied story of text comprehension. Firstly, the reader's perceptual memory could contribute to the construction of mental representations, i.e., situation models, during story comprehension. Especially, the perceptual information in autobiographical memory is supposed to contribute to constructing situation models. Furthermore, because the accumulation of situation models forms a similar structure as autobiographical memory, it could share a cognitive process: vicarious experience of the real world. Therefore, story comprehension and autobiographical memory have strong connections as a kind of embodied cognition. Secondly, the accumulation of situation models throughout whole story reading has so unique feature that couldn't reduce each situation model of words or sentences, then become a fruitful target in the research about embodied cognition of language. Thirdly, developmental research possibly unites the cognitive processes of story comprehension, autobiographical memory, and the concept of the real world as a kind of embodied cognition.