Causal relatedness and importance of story events

Trabasso, Tom; Sperry, Linda L.

doi:10.1016/0749-596x(85)90048-8

Cited by 580 publications

(410 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…As such, these facts represent the meaningful unit of content and can be excised from a larger message and inserted into other messages, or even presented alone, with little loss of understanding. In contrast, narrative communication is context-dependent because it derives it meaning from the ongoing cause-and-effect structure of the temporal events of which it is comprised (11)(12)(13). As such, it is much harder to break a narrative into smaller units of meaningful content without either greatly altering the understanding of the smaller unit or rendering the original narrative incoherent (3).…”

Section: Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences

Dahlstrom

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

786

513

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Although storytelling often has negative connotations within science, narrative formats of communication should not be disregarded when communicating science to nonexpert audiences. Narratives offer increased comprehension, interest, and engagement. Nonexperts get most of their science information from mass media content, which is itself already biased toward narrative formats. Narratives are also intrinsically persuasive, which offers science communicators tactics for persuading otherwise resistant audiences, although such use also raises ethical considerations. Future intersections of narrative research with ongoing discussions in science communication are introduced.persuasion | ethics S torytelling often has a bad reputation within science (1).Viewed as baseless or even manipulative, stories are often denigrated with statements such as, "the plural of anecdote is not data." Such a perspective is valuable within the context of scientific data collection to underscore the important difference between making informed generalizations from systematically sampled populations versus overgeneralizations from small and often biased samples.However, when the context moves from data collection to the communication of science to nonexpert audiences, stories, anecdotes, and narratives become not only more appropriate but potentially more important. Research suggests that narratives are easier to comprehend and audiences find them more engaging than traditional logical-scientific communication (3, 4). More pragmatically, the sources from which nonexperts receive most of their science information are already biased toward narrative formats of communication. Once out of formal schooling, nonexpert audiences get the majority of their scientific information from mass media content (5). Because media practitioners have to compete for the attention of their audiences, they routinely rely on stories, anecdotes, and other narrative formats to cut although the information clutter and resonate with their audiences. Although the plural of anecdote may not be data, the anecdote has a greater chance of reaching and engaging with a nonexpert audience. The challenge for science communicators, then, is to decide when and how narratives can effectively and appropriately help them communicate to nonexperts about science.The purpose of this article is to synthesize literature on narrative communication and place it within a science communication context. The article begins with a review of narrative literature, as well as the mass media context through which most nonexpert audiences get their information about science. The article then reviews the potential persuasive impacts of narrative communication and the ethical considerations of using narrative to communicate science. Finally, future intersections of narrative with ongoing questions in science communication are introduced. NarrativesMost individuals have an inherent understanding of what it means to tell a story. Communication scholars supplement this colloquial understanding of narr...

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Section: Narrativesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences

Dahlstrom

2014

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

786

513

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“…The causal linkages among these elements heavily influence a reader's representation of the meaning of the narrative. Tracking a reader's understanding of characters' plans and goals has been the focus of research on causal analysis of narratives (Black & Bower 1980, Schank & Abelson 1977, Trabasso & Sperry 1985.…”

Section: Causal Analyses Of Motives Actions and Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Tom Trabasso and his associates , Trabasso & Sperry 1985, Trabasso & van den Broek 1985 analyzed many simple narratives, asking whether each event (described in a story statement) was enabled or caused by earlier events or whether it enables or causes later events. In a coherent story, the enabling events and causes form a web of connections.…”

Section: Causal Analyses Of Motives Actions and Outcomesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Evolution of a Cognitive Psychologist: A Journey from Simple Behaviors to Complex Mental Acts

Bower

2008

Annu. Rev. Psychol.

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The author summarizes his evolving interests from conditioning studies within a behaviorist orientation, thence to human memory, knowledge representation, and narrative understanding and memory. Arguing that the study of skilled reading provides a microcosm for revealing cognitive processes, he illustrates this by reviewing his research on the use of spatial priming to investigate readers' on-line updating of their situational models of texts. Conceptual entities close to the reader's focus of attention within the model are readily retrieved. Retrieval speed from memory declines with the probed object's distance from the current focus and decays with time elapsed in the narrative since the item was last in focus. The focus effect varies with the character's perspective, his status in the story, his active goals, and other factors. The results are accommodated within an associative network model distinguishing just-read sentences in short-term memory from activated portions of long-term memory structures to which they refer.

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“…While cognitive scientists have studied several forms of causality (Trabasso & Sperry, 1985;Trabasso & Van Den Broek, 1985;Zwaan & Radvansky, 1998), one in particular is easily available in plans using causal links: the ways in which the effects of earlier events enable later events by establishing their preconditions.…”

Section: -The Indexter Modelmentioning

confidence: 99%

Predicting User Choices in Interactive Narratives Using Indexter’s Pairwise Event Salience Hypothesis

Farrell

Ware

2016

Interactive Storytelling

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Causal relatedness and importance of story events

Cited by 580 publications

References 21 publications

Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences

Using narratives and storytelling to communicate science with nonexpert audiences

The Evolution of a Cognitive Psychologist: A Journey from Simple Behaviors to Complex Mental Acts

Predicting User Choices in Interactive Narratives Using Indexter’s Pairwise Event Salience Hypothesis

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