Causal coherence and memory for events in narratives

Abstract

Causally related events in narratives were remembered better than events that were not causally related. In Experiment 1, subjects recalled sentences from stories when given the sentences that immediately preceded them as cues. Cued recall was better when the two sentences were causally related than when they were not. In Experiment 2, subjects free recalled the same stories. Again, recall was better for the sentences when they were part of a causally related pair. Also subjects were more likely to combine two sentences into one during recall when they were causally related.