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Abstract

This study compared recall of action in narrative film scenes that vary with regard to their necessity for the story, their typicality of the film's genre, and their function in the exposition or narrative development. These variables were dichotomized yielding a 2 × 2 × 2 design in which each of the eight combinations of levels was represented by a specific scene. Recall of action was tested for each scene immediately after viewing the film and one week later. Scenes that were necessary, typical, or that developed the narrative were recalled in greater detail but only narrative development significantly increased the probability of recalling a scene's key action. Atypical scenes were better recalled during exposition but typical scenes were better recalled during narrative development. There were no significant effects associated with delaying recall for one week, nor with the ordinal position or amount of information in a scene. Results suggest that as the narrative develops, an event schema takes precedence over generic scripts in processing story information. Results are also discussed in terms of a “Script pointer plus tag” model and it is suggested that plot and story may have different memory representations.

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The Influence of Story,Plot,and Genre on Memory for Action in a Film

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