The “soap opera” effect in story recall

Abstract

When people learn a series of actions of a character, their memory is strongly influenced, we suggest, by beliefs about that character's motives. Motives serve as schema for deciding the meaning of the actions, their importance, and their interconnections. In two experiments, subjects read and later remembered some dull activities of a character. Experimental subjects knew what this character was worrying about (e.g., an unwanted pregnancy); control subjects did not. Recall and recognition showed that motive subjects distorted many of the colorless events to be motive relevant. Although the motive schema helped connect the disparate actions, it interfered with accurate recording and recall of the details.