Different kinds of causality in event cognition: Memory for antecedents and consequences

Abstract This paper presents a reanalysis of data previously reported from our lab. In line with prior research, these studies found that narrative memory was strongly influenced by the number of causal connections an event had within a larger narrative. In the current study, we were primarily interested in reanalyzing that data to consider whether these causal connections were antecedents or consequences. We found across studies that memory was much more strongly influenced by the number of causal consequences than the number of causal antecedents or serial position. The results are consistent with the idea that during reading, upon encountering a new event that is a consequence of a prior narrative event, the memory trace of that prior event is reactivated, thereby improving its retrieval later. Of secondary interest, for one of these reanalyses, we also found that memory was better at event boundaries, particularly as the number of event dimension shifts increased. However, not all event shifts resulted in better memory. These findings pose important implications for existing event cognition theories, including the Event Horizon Model, Event Segmentation Theory, and the Event Indexing Model.