Point of view in narrative comprehension, memory, and production

Abstract

A preference for a consistent point of view pervades narrative comprehension, memory, and production. Subjects read statements exhibiting a consistent point of view faster than statements exhibiting a change in point of view, and they rated the consistent statements as more comprehensible than change statements. Futhermore, subjects tended to misrecall change statements as consistent statements; and when asked to edit statements to make them more comprehensible, they rewrote change statements to be consistent. Merely making a character the subject of the narrative statement sufficed to establish his as the dominant point of view.