Abstract: Since Wyer and Srull introduced the situation model into the field of social information processing, the situation model has come to be one of the focuses in the relevant researches and its structure and mental mechanism have been developed. This article chiefly introduces its content, structure and basic hypotheses. The situation model represents ones understanding of specific events or states of affairs, and it is constructed spontaneously in the course of comprehending the information conveyed in social situations. Once the situation model is constructed, it may provide the primary basis for comprehending new information and judging the people and events. The situation model involves three basic types of information: a spatial-temporal framework, a collection of entities, and a set of relations among those entities. The theory of situation model assumes that people keep trace of at least five dimensions during comprehension. Those include: space, time, entities, causality and intentionality. Furthermore, future research orientation is probed in the article.

Key words: the social information processing situation situation model event models episode models.