Cognitive structures in comprehension and memory of narrative discourse

The effects of structure and content variables on memory and comprehension of prose passages were studied in two experiments. The experimental passages exemplify a class of simple narrative stories that is described by a generative grammar of plot structures. A comprehension model is proposed that assumes a hierarchical organizational framework of stories in memory, determined by the grammar, representing the abstract structural components of the plot. The quality and characteristics of subjects' memory for stories were tested on a variety of experimental tasks in which story organization was manipulated. Comprehensibility and recall were found to be a function of the amount of inherent plot structure in the story, independent of passage content. Recall probability of individual facts from passages depended on the structural centrality of the facts: Subjects tended to recall facts corresponding to high-level organizational story elements rather than lower-level details. In addition, story summarizations from memory tended to emphasize general structural characteristics rather than specific content. For successively presented stories, both structure and content manipulations influenced recall. Furthermore, repeating story structure across two passages produced facilitation in recall of the second passage, while repeating story content produced proactive interference. The implications for a model of memory for narrative discourse are discussed.     

Metamemory for narrative text

In this experiment, we investigated metamemory for narrative text passages. Subjects read two stories and made memory predictions for the idea units in one and rated the importance of ideas in the other. Half of the subjects were asked to recall the story immediately after reading the passages and half were asked to recall 1 week later; half received passages with single inconsistent idea units and half received passages with corresponding consistent idea units. All subjects made confidence judgments about the accuracy of their recall. Subjects’ prediction ratings were related to recall, as shown by significant prediction accuracy quotients. Importance ratings were related to recall on the delayed test but not on the immediate test. Memory prediction ratings predicted recall better than did importance ratings. The absolute level of memory predictions did not differ with delay, but subjects did give higher confidence judgments on an immediate than on a delayed test. Subjects recalled the inconsistent idea better than the consistent idea for one story but not for the other. For both stories, subjects predicted that they would remember the inconsistent ideas better, suggesting that they have avon Restorff-type view, rather than a schema view, of memory. We conclude that subjects can predict their memory for the idea units in narrative text.     

Monaural and binaural story recall by schizophrenic subjects.

P. Green and other investigators have reported that schizophrenic Ss have poorer recall of stories presented to both ears than to the single best ear (binaural deficit) and poorer recall of stories presented to the left ear than to the right ear (monaural asymmetry) than do normal control Ss. These studies are plagued by potential methodological problems, including differences in overall accuracy, which artifactually affect the difference scores, and scoring methods that are vulnerable to systematic bias. In this study, scores of schizophrenic, bipolar, and normal control Ss on the Auditory Comprehension Test were compared. Scoring bias was avoided by the use of blind scoring and a revised scoring manual, and artifactual effects of accuracy were considered in interpreting the results. Contrary to previous findings, the groups did not differ on either monaural asymmetry or binaural deficit.     

THE EFFECTS OF STORY STRUCTURE INSTRUCTION ON THE RECALL OF POOR SIXTH GRADE READERS

This study investigated the effects of story structure instruction on the recall of sixth‐grade students with low socio‐economic background using highly structured narrative materials. Students identified as having a poorly developed story concept were the subjects in the study. An experimental group received no instruction but read the stories, while a third group received neither instruction nor exposure to the stories. All subjects were posttested with a free recall measure.     

Effects of discrete emotions on young children's suggestibility

Two experiments investigated the effects of sadness, anger, and happiness on 4- to 6-year-old children's memory and suggestibility concerning story events. In Experiment 1, children were presented with 3 interactive stories on a video monitor. The stories included protagonists who wanted to give the child a prize. After each story, the child completed a task to try to win the prize. The outcome of the child's effort was manipulated in order to elicit sadness, anger, or happiness. Children's emotions did not affect story recall, but children were more vulnerable to misleading questions about the stories when sad than when angry or happy. In Experiment 2, a story was presented and emotions were elicited using an autobiographical recall task. Children responded to misleading questions and then recalled the story for a different interviewer. Again, children's emotions did not affect the amount of story information recalled correctly, but sad children incorporated more information from misleading questions during recall than did angry or happy children. Sad children's greater suggestibility is discussed in terms of the differing problem-solving strategies associated with discrete emotions.     

The Effects of Thematic Importance on Story Recall among Children with Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Comparison Children

This study examined the recall of televised stories for younger (4-6 years) and older (7-9 years) children with and without attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) under two different viewing conditions (toys present/toys absent). Each child watched two Rugrats television programs, once with toys present and once with toys absent. Immediately after viewing a program, the child completed a free recall of the observed story. Comparison children's recall increased more than ADHD children's as importance level increased, and comparison children recalled more information overall than children with ADHD. When toys were present, children with ADHD retold less coherent stories than comparison children, as indexed by smaller correlations between the story units recalled and the order of these units in the story. In summary, children with ADHD demonstrated multiple difficulties in story comprehension. These findings add to our understanding of the differences in higher-order cognitive processing abilities between children with ADHD and comparison children, and suggest important areas of focus in designing more effective academic interventions for children with ADHD.     

Preschoolers' comprehension of goal structure in narratives

Preschool children's understanding and use of goals were studied in two experiments. Children heard stories in the presence of pictures or props. The stories were varied by goal success occurring early or late in the story, with late goal success resulting in more causal connections in the narrative. The results showed that children recalled goals spontaneously and that their recall benefited from goal structure of the stories. Pictures benefited the children when the stories were short. Enactment of the props versus static displays of the props did not enhance recall in the second experiment. Preschool children thus demonstrated ability to infer and use goal and causal information in stories for both picture and object support.     

Preschoolers' comprehension of goal structure in narratives

Preschool children's understanding and use of goals were studied in two experiments. Children heard stories in the presence of pictures or props. The stories were varied by goal success occurring early or late in the story, with late goal success resulting in more causal connections in the narrative. The results showed that children recalled goals spontaneously and that their recall benefited from goal structure of the stories. Pictures benefited the children when the stories were short. Enactment of the props versus static displays of the props did not enhance recall in the second experiment. Preschool children thus demonstrated ability to infer and use goal and causal information in stories for both picture and object support.     

Depression and processing information about others

We investigated differences between mildly depressed subjects and normal controls in their memory for, and judgments of, another person. All subjects read a story (containing either predominately positive or predominately negative items) under instructions to form an impression of the story target. Subjects later made several judgments about the target and attempted to recall the story. For both the positive and the negative story, depressed subjects produced significantly more negative intrusions (i.e., recalled nonpresented negative items) than did the normal subjects, but they did not recall more negative items correctly than did the normal subjects. Depressed subjects also perceived themselves as more similar to the negative story target than did the normal controls and indicated greater liking for the negative story target than did the normal controls.     

Emotion and prior knowledge in memory and judged comprehension of ambiguous stories

Abstract

Two experiments investigated the effects of experimentally induced mood states on memory and judged comprehension of stories. The experiments examined the issue of whether induction of a depressed mood would affect prose memory and comprehension and impair the ability of individuals to use prior knowledge, activated by way of a title, in remembering the passage. In Experiment 1, depressed subjects who were given a title for the passage recalled fewer idea units when compared with neutral control conditions, but no depressive deficit in recall occurred in the absence of a title. In Experiment 2 the same pattern of results occurred when subjects learned two successive passages. The depressive deficits obtained were interpreted in terms of a resource allocation model which proposes that emotional states increase the production of irrelevant, competing thoughts that interfere with processes important in remembering the criterion passage. Alternative explanations involving cognitive initiative and schema theory were discussed. Finally, judgments of comprehension predicted passage recall and were better predictors for neutral than depressed mood subjects. A depressed mood state did not affect average judgments of comprehension even when recall was correspondingly impaired.     

Poetry as a Mnemonic Prompt in Children's Stories

This research investigates the effects of prosody on children's recall for stories using two successive studies. Study 1 is an ethnographic exploration of a group of fifth graders creating summaries of a children's story with overt prosodic elements. Study 2 is a quasi-experiment in which the story summaries created by students who heard one of two versions (more or less prosodic) of the story from Study 1 were compared. Overall, we find that the amount of prosody in a story has a significant effect on children's story recall and the quality of the stories they produce.     

Comprehension of televised stories in boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and nonreferred boys

Two studies compared comprehension of televised stories by 7- to 12-year-old boys with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and nonreferred comparison boys. Boys watched one show with toys present and one with toys absent. Visual attention was continuously recorded, and recall was tested after each show. Across studies, visual attention was high with toys absent but decreased sharply with toys present for boys with ADHD. Groups showed similar levels of cued recall of discrete units of information regardless of differences in attention. When recall tasks and television story structure required knowledge of relations among events, the reduced attention of boys with ADHD interfered with recall. Although visual attention of comparison boys also decreased to some extent with toys present, there was no such decrement in recall. Implications of the difficulties children with ADHD have in integrated story comprehension are discussed.     

There is more to life stories than memories

Current theories focus on the role of specific memories in organising the life story. However, temporally extended structures of autobiographical memory, like lifetime periods and mini-narratives (here termed chapters), may also play a central role in the organisation of the life story. Here, 30 elderly participants were asked to tell their life story in a free format. The life stories were divided into components and coded as chapters, specific memories, categoric memories, facts, chapters about other people, and autobiographical reasoning categories, i.e., reflections, evaluations, life lessons, and inferences about personality. The results show that chapters were much more common than specific memories in the life stories, indicating that chapters may play a role in the structuring of life stories. The number of chapters and specific memories in the life stories were unrelated, suggesting that the recounting of chapters versus specific memories does not reflect a preferred recall style.     

Witnessing postevents does not change memory traces,but can affect their retrieval

The results of three experiments suggest that a memory trace for an event is not altered by witnessing similar events, but that postevents can interfere with its retrieval. On an immediate recall test, details from an original story (e.g. wrench) were recalled less often if a subsequent story mentioned a ‘screwdriver’ than if it did not. The interference effect occurred if people were asked to recall details fromboth stories (tool —— ——), but not if people were asked to recall primarily from the first story. Thus, the interference effect in immediate recall was averted if the target trace could be activated selectively (Experiments 1a and 1b). A more general interference effect was found after a day. Fewer targets from the original story were recalled if the second story was presented just before the test than if both stories occurred a day earlier. Thus, the second story interfered with recall only if it emphasized contextual retrieval cues that did not match the trace for the targets (Experiment 2). Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The Relation of Story Structure Properties to Recall of Television Stories in Young Children with Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder and Nonreferred Peers

In this study, the authors examined memory for televised stories to gain insight into similarities and differences in story comprehension between young children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and their typical peers. In particular, the authors investigated the extent to which 4- to 6-year-old children's free recall of story events is predicted by several structural properties of story events (number of causal connections, whether an event is on or off the story's causal chain, story-grammar category, and position in the story's hierarchical structure), whether differences exist between children with ADHD and nonreferred comparison children in their sensitivity to structural features of stories, and whether age differences in sensitivity to structural features are similar for both groups. For both groups, recall of story events was predicted by all four structural properties, but the effects of the two causal properties was stronger for comparison children than for children with ADHD. Further examination revealed that this difference was observed only when a competing activity was available during television viewing. These findings indicate that both groups of preschool children are able to benefit from causal structure when recalling television stories, but that children with ADHD lose this benefit when attention is divided. Consistent with previous findings for nonreferred children (P. W. van den Broek, E. P. Lorch, & R. Thurlow, 1996), in both diagnostic groups the effects of causal properties increased across age, and older children were more likely to include causally important protagonists' goals in their recalls than younger children.     

Memory for emotional stories in high and low depressed children

Cognitive theories of depression emphasise a vicious circle linking depressed mood and biased recall towards negative information. In line with this, depressed adults show selectively enhanced recall for negative information. This recall bias is held to be mediated by increased accessibility of negative self-referent schemas formed as a result of adverse early experiences. Given this, surprisingly few studies have examined depression-related recall biases from a developmental perspective. Clinically depressed children have been found to show enhanced recall of negative adjectives, particularly when self-referent, but to date there is no evidence for similar recall biases in non-clinically depressed groups. The current study addressed this by investigating high and low non-clinically depressed children's (aged 5-11 years) recall of emotional stories. High depressed children showed enhanced recall of negative stories, relative to positive stories, compared to the low depressed group. This did not vary with age group. We conclude that, when child-oriented materials are used, depression-related biases in recall towards negative information are observable even in a non-clinical sample of children from 5 years of age.     

Some effects of epistemological structure on memory

Graph theoretical models of the epistemological structure imposed upon a set of mathematical concepts by Ss’ definitions of them were constructed. Three graphical characteristics of the models were manipulated in a series of experiments to assess their effects on recall. Experiment I showed that recall and confidence of recall were highest for concept pairs connected by short paths, next highest for those connected by long paths, and lowest for those not connected by paths. Experiment II replicated the result of Experiment I that recall and confidence of recall were greater for concept pairs connected by paths than for those not connected by paths and revealed no differences in recall between concept pairs connected by many paths and those connected by a few paths. Experiment III found no differences in recall of abstract and concrete concepts, The abstractness of a concept was quantified by the mean path length from the concept to primitive (undefined) concepts. The approach of building a model of each S’s epistemological structure was supported by the finding that, while a given. S’s definitions of the concepts remained relatively constant, there were considerable differences in definitions of the concepts between Ss.     

Memory for emotional stories in high and low depressed children

Cognitive theories of depression emphasise a vicious circle linking depressed mood and biased recall towards negative information. In line with this, depressed adults show selectively enhanced recall for negative information. This recall bias is held to be mediated by increased accessibility of negative self‐referent schemas formed as a result of adverse early experiences. Given this, surprisingly few studies have examined depression‐related recall biases from a developmental perspective. Clinically depressed children have been found to show enhanced recall of negative adjectives, particularly when self‐referent, but to date there is no evidence for similar recall biases in non‐clinically depressed groups. The current study addressed this by investigating high and low non‐clinically depressed children's (aged 5–11 years) recall of emotional stories. High depressed children showed enhanced recall of negative stories, relative to positive stories, compared to the low depressed group. This did not vary with age group. We conclude that, when child‐oriented materials are used, depression‐related biases in recall towards negative information are observable even in a non‐clinical sample of children from 5 years of age.