Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts
When people retell stories, what guides their retelling? Most previous research on story retelling and story comprehension has focused on information accuracy as the key measure of stability in transmission. This paper suggests that there is a second, affective, dimension that provides stability for...
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doaj-112437cbaea94740a9a190b9e214c4fc2020-11-25T00:17:04ZengFrontiers Media S.A.Frontiers in Psychology1664-10782018-11-01910.3389/fpsyg.2018.02210375712Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of FactsFritz Breithaupt0Fritz Breithaupt1Binyan Li2Binyan Li3Torrin M. Liddell4Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson5Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson6Sarah Whaley7Department of Germanic Studies, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesCognitive Science Program, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesCognitive Science Program, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesDepartment of Linguistics, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesCognitive Science Program, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesDepartment of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesHutton Honors College, Indiana University Bloomington, Bloomington, IN, United StatesWhen people retell stories, what guides their retelling? Most previous research on story retelling and story comprehension has focused on information accuracy as the key measure of stability in transmission. This paper suggests that there is a second, affective, dimension that provides stability for retellings, namely the audience affect of surprise. In a large-sample study with multiple iterations of retellings, we found evidence that people are quite accurate in preserving all degrees of surprisingness in serial reproduction – even when the event that produced the surprisingness in the original story is dropped or changed. Thus, we propose that the preservation of affect is an implicit goal of retelling: merely do retellers not recall highly surprising events better, but rather they register all levels of surprisingness precisely and aim to surprise their implied audience to same degree. This study used 2,389 participants.Significance Statement: Story retelling is a process whereby cultural information is transmitted horizontally across social networks and vertically down generations. For the most part, retelling research has focused on the relevance and stability of factual information, “who did what, where, when, and why”; comparatively little is known about the transmission of affective information. We suggest that affect can serve as a second axis of stability for retelling, partially independent from factual information. In serial reproduction tasks modeled after the telephone game, we find that surprisingness of stories is well preserved across retellings – even when the facts and events of the story are not. The findings are significant for the communication of information, and thereby also the stability and transformation of culture in general.https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02210/fullnarrativesurprisenarrative affectserial reproductioneventcultural transmission |
collection |
DOAJ |
language |
English |
format |
Article |
sources |
DOAJ |
author |
Fritz Breithaupt Fritz Breithaupt Binyan Li Binyan Li Torrin M. Liddell Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson Sarah Whaley |
spellingShingle |
Fritz Breithaupt Fritz Breithaupt Binyan Li Binyan Li Torrin M. Liddell Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson Sarah Whaley Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts Frontiers in Psychology narrative surprise narrative affect serial reproduction event cultural transmission |
author_facet |
Fritz Breithaupt Fritz Breithaupt Binyan Li Binyan Li Torrin M. Liddell Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson Eleanor B. Schille-Hudson Sarah Whaley |
author_sort |
Fritz Breithaupt |
title |
Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts |
title_short |
Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts |
title_full |
Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts |
title_fullStr |
Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts |
title_full_unstemmed |
Fact vs. Affect in the Telephone Game: All Levels of Surprise Are Retold With High Accuracy, Even Independently of Facts |
title_sort |
fact vs. affect in the telephone game: all levels of surprise are retold with high accuracy, even independently of facts |
publisher |
Frontiers Media S.A. |
series |
Frontiers in Psychology |
issn |
1664-1078 |
publishDate |
2018-11-01 |
description |
When people retell stories, what guides their retelling? Most previous research on story retelling and story comprehension has focused on information accuracy as the key measure of stability in transmission. This paper suggests that there is a second, affective, dimension that provides stability for retellings, namely the audience affect of surprise. In a large-sample study with multiple iterations of retellings, we found evidence that people are quite accurate in preserving all degrees of surprisingness in serial reproduction – even when the event that produced the surprisingness in the original story is dropped or changed. Thus, we propose that the preservation of affect is an implicit goal of retelling: merely do retellers not recall highly surprising events better, but rather they register all levels of surprisingness precisely and aim to surprise their implied audience to same degree. This study used 2,389 participants.Significance Statement: Story retelling is a process whereby cultural information is transmitted horizontally across social networks and vertically down generations. For the most part, retelling research has focused on the relevance and stability of factual information, “who did what, where, when, and why”; comparatively little is known about the transmission of affective information. We suggest that affect can serve as a second axis of stability for retelling, partially independent from factual information. In serial reproduction tasks modeled after the telephone game, we find that surprisingness of stories is well preserved across retellings – even when the facts and events of the story are not. The findings are significant for the communication of information, and thereby also the stability and transformation of culture in general. |
topic |
narrative surprise narrative affect serial reproduction event cultural transmission |
url |
https://www.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02210/full |
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