Visuospatial Cues for Reinstating Mental Models in Working Memory During Interrupted Reading Darryl W. Schneider Carnegie Mellon University Peter Dixon University of Alberta Reading involves constructing a mental representation in long-term working memory of the world described by the text. Disrupting short-term working memory can interfere with the maintenance of mental models (sets of retrieval cues) needed to access these representations, producing detrimental effects on reading time. In two experiments, subjects read passages that included pairs of coreferential sentences interrupted by unrelated text. As in previous research, reading times increased for the first sentence after the interruption, likely reflecting a reinstatement process for mental models in working memory. In the present research, pictures were provided as visuospatial cues to aid the reinstatement process. The interruption effect was found to be smaller with pictures related to the passages than with unrelated pictures (Experiment 1) or titles (Experiment 2); however, both of these effects occurred only for slow readers. The authors hypothesize that slow readers take the time needed to integrate visuospatial information into their mental models, providing more resilient access to long-term working memory. Keywords: reading, mental models, working memory, interruption, pictorial cues Reading is a complex cognitive activity that involves construct- ing and maintaining coherent mental representations in working memory. Information derived from text must be stored, processed, and integrated with knowledge retrieved from long-term memory to understand the text. Mental models (Garnham, 1981; Johnson- Laird, 1983), situation models (van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983), and referential representations (Just & Carpenter, 1987) are all terms that have been used to describe the mental representations con- structed by readers of the world described by the text. The goal of the present study was to explore the extent to which these mental models of text incorporate detailed visuospatial information. Using an interrupted reading procedure, we found that only some readers spontaneously include such information in their mental models, indicating possible differences in the strategies or cognitive abil- ities used in reading. Mental Models and Long-Term Working Memory Our theoretical approach to mental models and reading is based on the theory of long-term working memory proposed by Ericsson and Kintsch (1995). They argued that highly skilled activities involve the construction of mental representations in long-term working memory and the maintenance of retrieval cues in short- term working memory. The long-term working memory represen- tations are assumed to be relatively stable, whereas the retrieval cues and their associated structures in short-term working memory are more transient. Thus, when short-term working memory is disrupted, retrieval cues may be temporarily lost and access to mental representations in long-term working memory may be impaired. Access can be restored by reconstructing the retrieval structure in short-term working memory. In reading, these retrieval structures can be construed as mental models that permit access to long-term working memory representations of the text (cf. Ledoux & Gordon, 2006; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996). This idea is similar to one proposed by Glenberg and Langston (1992), who argued that the constituent elements of mental models serve as pointers to more detailed information represented in long-term memory. To support their concept of long-term working memory, Ericsson and Kintsch (1995) cited a number of studies by Glanzer and col- leagues (Fischer & Glanzer, 1986; Glanzer, Dorfman, & Kaplan, 1981; Glanzer, Fischer, & Dorfman, 1984) that investigated what happens when reading is occasionally interrupted by performing a distractor task. The main finding in these studies was that reading time increased for the first sentence after the distractor task and then returned to normal levels for subsequent sentences. We will refer to the increase in reading time after the distractor task as the interruption effect. From the theoretical perspective of Ericsson and Kintsch, the interruption effect could be interpreted as follows: Before the interruption, short-term working memory holds the retrieval structure (i.e., the mental model) used to access the evolving mental representation of the text. The distractor task also requires the use of short-term working memory, and, as a conse- quence, the mental model may be displaced. The interruption effect represents the time needed to reinstate the mental model in short-term working memory as needed for accurate comprehen- sion. This interpretation is supported by the finding that the interrup- tion effect is associated with situations in which textual informa- tion preceding the interruption is needed for comprehension. For Darryl W. Schneider, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University; Peter Dixon, Department of Psychology, University of Alberta. This research was supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada through an undergraduate student research award to the first author and a discovery grant to the second author. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Darryl W. Schneider, Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. E-mail: dws@cmu.edu Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology © 2009 Canadian Psychological Association 2009, Vol. 63, No. 3, 161–172 1196-1961/09/$12.00 DOI: 10.1037/a0014867 161