The Role of Prototypes in the Mental Representation of Temporally Related Events

@article{citeulike:172763, abstract = {Four experiments investigated the conditions in which people use a prototypic event sequence to comprehend a situation-specific sequence of events. Results of Experiment 1 confirmed Trafimow and Wyer's (1993) findings that when participants use a prototype (e.g., a cultural script) to comprehend a new sequence of events concerning a hypothetical person, events that are thematically unrelated to the prototype facilitate the recall of prototypic ones. When participants do not employ a prototype, however, thematically unrelated events interfere with the recall of the prototypic ones. These findings establish a criterion for determining whether prototypes are used as a basis for comprehending an event sequence. Experiment 2 showed that the formation and use of a prototype to comprehend a novel event sequence increases with the number of exemplars to which persons have been exposed before the sequence is encountered. However, Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that people often do not use prototypes to interpret sequences of behaviors that they imagine either themselves or a well-known other performing. This is true even though they personally perform the sequence of behaviors on a daily basis and even though a prototypic representation of the event sequence exists in memory.}, author = {Colcombe, Stanley J. and Wyer, Jr }, citeulike-article-id = {172763}, doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2001.0766}, journal = {Cognitive Psychology}, keywords = {cognition, eventschemas}, month = {February}, number = {1}, pages = {67--103}, posted-at = {2005-11-16 13:20:03}, priority = {4}, title = {The Role of Prototypes in the Mental Representation of Temporally Related Events}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2001.0766}, volume = {44}, year = {2002} }

TY - JOUR ID - citeulike:172763 L3 - citeulike-article-id:172763 TI - The Role of Prototypes in the Mental Representation of Temporally Related Events JF - Cognitive Psychology VL - 44 IS - 1 SP - 67 EP - 103 N2 - Four experiments investigated the conditions in which people use a prototypic event sequence to comprehend a situation-specific sequence of events. Results of Experiment 1 confirmed Trafimow and Wyer's (1993) findings that when participants use a prototype (e.g., a cultural script) to comprehend a new sequence of events concerning a hypothetical person, events that are thematically unrelated to the prototype facilitate the recall of prototypic ones. When participants do not employ a prototype, however, thematically unrelated events interfere with the recall of the prototypic ones. These findings establish a criterion for determining whether prototypes are used as a basis for comprehending an event sequence. Experiment 2 showed that the formation and use of a prototype to comprehend a novel event sequence increases with the number of exemplars to which persons have been exposed before the sequence is encountered. However, Experiments 3 and 4 indicated that people often do not use prototypes to interpret sequences of behaviors that they imagine either themselves or a well-known other performing. This is true even though they personally perform the sequence of behaviors on a daily basis and even though a prototypic representation of the event sequence exists in memory. KW - cognition KW - eventschemas AU - Colcombe, Stanley AU - Wyer, Jr PY - 2002/02// UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1006/cogp.2001.0766 ER -