The fate of completed goal information in narrative comprehension

Abstract

Most studies investigating the use of goal information in narrative comprehension have focused more on the increased availability of uncompleted or failed goal information relative to completed goal information. The current study does the opposite. Two experiments were conducted to determine the fate of completed goal information. Three possibilities were considered: (a) that completed goal information remains more available than neutral information, (b) that completed goal information decays to baseline, or (c) that completed goal information is suppressed below baseline. The results of the experiments indicate that completed goal information remains more available than neutral information. These results are related to current theories of how causal information affects narrative comprehension. © 1997 Academic Press.