Processing narrative time shifts

This study examined how the chronological distance between 2 consecutively narrated story events affects the on-line comprehension and mental representation of these events. College students read short narrative passages from a computer screen and responded to recognition probes. The results of 4 experiments consistently demonstrated that readers used temporal information to construct situation models while comprehending narratives. First, sentence reading times increased when there was a narrative time shift (e.g., as denoted by an hour later) as opposed to when there was no narrative time shift (e.g., as denoted by a moment later). Second, information from the previously narrated event was less accessible when it was followed by a time shift than when it was not. Third, 2 events that were separated by a narrative time shift were less strongly connected in long-term memory than 2 events that were not separated by a narrative time shift. The results suggest that readers use a strong iconicity assumption during story comprehension.