Mental models and working memory in temporal and spatial reasoning

Guyau's (1890) hypothesis that time is represented in a spatial format implies that reasoning about temporal relations and reasoning about spatial relations are very similar to each other. One reading of this time-spatialization hypothesis contends that in both reasoning about temporal and about spatial relations, a strategy of constructing and evaluating spatial mental models is used. For this strategy to operate, the problem solver has to use visuo-spatial resources. Some implications of this thesis are elaborated and confronted with data from experiments performed in our laboratory. In the first part, evidence is presented to show that reasoning problems with a temporal content as well as reasoning problems with a spatial content are solved on the basis of a process of construction and evaluation of mental models. The second part presents data from experiments in which the resources of the working memory system (Baddeley & Hitch, 1974) were loaded while performing a series of reasoning tasks. The data are used to show that spatially coded mental models sire constructed on-line while performing the reasoning tasks. Finally, the implications of the findings for Guyau's hypothesis, for the working memory model and for the mental model view are discussed