Going off script: Effects of awe on memory for script-typical and -irrelevant narrative detail

Area of Science:

• Cognitive Psychology
• Social Psychology
• Affective Science

Background:

• Individuals often rely on event scripts (pre-existing knowledge) to encode new experiences, sometimes at the expense of specific details.
• Positive affect has been previously shown to increase reliance on these event scripts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate whether the emotion of awe, elicited by perceived vastness, has an opposite effect.
• To determine if awe reduces reliance on event scripts and/or enhances memory for unexpected details.

Main Methods:

• Three studies were conducted using true/false questions to assess memory for details of a short story.
• Participants' recall of script-consistent (but false) and unexpected details was measured.
• Subjective awe and other affective states were recorded.

Main Results:

• Awe consistently reduced the tendency to remember script-consistent but false details.
• Evidence for awe promoting memory of unexpected details was less consistent across studies.
• The observed effects were partially mediated by subjective awe and independent of other affect measures.

Conclusions:

• Awe appears to decrease reliance on internal knowledge structures (event scripts) during the processing of new information.
• This suggests that awe may promote more detailed and less schematic memory encoding.
• Findings contribute to understanding the role of specific emotions in cognitive processing and memory.