Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Bystander Effect

Bystander Effect

The discussion of bullying highlights the problem of witnesses not intervening to help a victim. This is a common occurrence, as the following well-publicized event demonstrates. In 1964, in Queens, New York, a 19-year-old woman named Kitty Genovese was attacked by a person with a knife near the back entrance to her apartment building and again in the hallway inside her apartment building. When the attack occurred, she screamed for help numerous times and eventually died from her stab wounds.

Persuasion Strategies

Persuasion Strategies

Researchers have tested many persuasion strategies, including the foot-in-the door and the door-in-the-face techniques, in a variety of contexts. Ultimately, the principles are effective in selling products and changing people’s attitude, ideas, and behaviors (Cialdini & Goldstein, 2004).

Schemas

Schemas

A schema is a mental construct consisting of a cluster or collection of related concepts (Bartlett, 1932). There are many different types of schemata, and they all have one thing in common: schemata are a method of organizing information that allows the brain to work more efficiently. When a schema is activated, the brain makes immediate assumptions about the person or object being observed.

Framing Effects

Framing Effects

Information is everywhere and its presentation—such as how and when items are presented—can impact our perceptions and decisions surrounding the info. This broad concept umbrellas framing effects—influences that occur due to the way information is framed in its appearance, whether it’s purely the order or the specific wording of a message. Let’s take a look at numerous ways in which two versions of something can objectively say the same thing, yet we respond in different ways based on the...

Reason and Intuition

Reason and Intuition

The human brain processes information for decision-making using one of two routes: an intuitive system and a rational system (Epstein, 1994; popularized by Kahneman, 2011 as System 1 and System 2, respectively). The intuitive system is quick, impulsive, and operates with minimal effort, relying on emotions or habits to provide cues for what to do next, while the rational system is logical, analytical, deliberate, and methodical. Research in neuropsychology suggests that the brain can only use...

The Availability Heuristic

The Availability Heuristic

A heuristic is a general problem-solving framework (Tversky & Kahneman, 1974). You can think of these as mental shortcuts that are used to solve problems. Different types of heuristics are used in different types of situations, and the impulse to use a heuristic occurs when one of five conditions is met (Pratkanis, 1989):

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Nocturnal sleep stage stability features in unexplained hypersomnolence.

Journal of clinical sleep medicine : JCSM : official publication of the American Academy of Sleep Medicine·2025

Same author

Using diffusion models for symbolic numeracy tasks to examine aging effects.

Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition·2024

Same author

Reexamining the effects of speed-accuracy instructions with a diffusion-model-based analysis.

Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition·2023

Same author

Self-Directed Home-Based Dim-Light Melatonin Onset Collection: The Circadia Pilot Study.

medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences·2023

Same author

Mobile Apps for Dietary and Food Timing Assessment: Evaluation for Use in Clinical Research.

JMIR formative research·2023

Same author

Interacting with characters redux.

The Behavioral and brain sciences·2023

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

Waiting for Brandon: How Readers Respond to Small Mysteries.

Richard J Gerrig¹, Jessica Love, Gail McKoon

¹Stony Brook University.

Journal of Memory and Language

|January 5, 2010

Summary

Unresolved character information in stories keeps those characters more accessible in readers' minds. This narrative mystery impacts how readers process subsequent story details, affecting comprehension.

Area of Science:

Cognitive Psychology
Computational Linguistics
Narrative Theory

Background:

Readers often encounter unresolved questions, or
mysteries
in narratives.
These mysteries can influence how readers represent and process story information.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how unresolved character information affects accessibility in discourse representations.
To determine the impact of narrative mysteries on cognitive processing during reading.

Main Methods:

Participants read stories with either resolved or unresolved character functions.
Reaction times were measured for name recognition tasks (Experiments 1 & 2).
Information processing was assessed by examining reading comprehension of subsequent text (Experiments 3 & 4).

More Related Videos

Experimental Research Examining How People Can Cope with Uncertainty Through Soft Haptic Sensations

Experimental Research Examining How People Can Cope with Uncertainty Through Soft Haptic Sensations

Published on: September 16, 2015

Place and Response Learning in the Open-field Tower Maze

Place and Response Learning in the Open-field Tower Maze

Published on: October 28, 2015

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Jun 17, 2026

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Training Synesthetic Letter-color Associations by Reading in Color

Published on: February 20, 2014

Experimental Research Examining How People Can Cope with Uncertainty Through Soft Haptic Sensations

Experimental Research Examining How People Can Cope with Uncertainty Through Soft Haptic Sensations

Published on: September 16, 2015

Place and Response Learning in the Open-field Tower Maze

Place and Response Learning in the Open-field Tower Maze

Published on: October 28, 2015

Main Results:

Unresolved characters remained more accessible in discourse representations.
Participants responded faster to names of unresolved characters.
Unresolved characters disrupted the processing of subsequent information but not preceding information.

Conclusions:

The accessibility of unresolved characters highlights their continued cognitive engagement.
Narrative mysteries play a significant role in information processing and comprehension.
Theoretical accounts of reader responses to narrative mysteries are crucial.