Action goal changes caused by agents and patients both induce global updating of event models

Observers represent everyday actions in event models along multiple dimensions such as space, time, or goals. Whenever new information along those dimensions is perceived, the event model is updated accordingly. In 3 experiments, we investigated event model updating associated with goal changes during ongoing actions that involved both an agent performing the action and a patient receiving the action. We presented short action clips showing goal-directed actions-such as handing over a book-as self-paced slideshows. Those action sequences contained either no goal change or a goal change caused by either the agent or the patient of the action. We measured viewing times (Experiments 1-3) and verbal action descriptions (Experiment 3). The action descriptions revealed that patients causing a goal change turned into agents in the event model. Despite the updating of the additional dimension (protagonist) for goal changes caused by patients, goal changes caused by agents and patients were associated with a similar updating effort as indicated by the viewing times and a similar increase in the complexity of the represented event structure as indicated by the number of clauses used in the action descriptions. Thus, updating was global rather than incremental in our experiments. We conclude that goal changes cause a global updating of event models independent of the source of the goal change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).