An Investigation of the Coherence of Oral Narratives: Associations With Mental Health, Social Support and the Coherence of Written Narratives

Research Questions

In a first research question, we examined whether the relations that are generally observed between the coherence of written autobiographical narratives and outcomes of mental health and social support, can be replicated for the coherence of oral narratives. Second, we studied whether the coherence of oral narratives is related to the coherence of written narratives.

Methods

Pearson correlations and t-tests were calculated on data of two separate studies to examine the research questions.

Results

First, only thematic coherence of oral narratives was significantly, although moderately, negatively associated to symptoms of depression, anxiety and negative social interactions. Second, the coherence of oral narratives was higher than the coherence of written narratives. Only the thematic coherence of oral narratives was positively associated with thematic and total coherence of written narratives. Furthermore, correlations between written and oral narratives were stronger for negative narratives as compared to positive narratives.

Discussion

The ability to elaborate emotionally and make meaning out of important life events in oral narratives is, to a certain extent, related to better mental health and more social support. Furthermore, thematic coherence may be a relatively stable feature of individuals' narrative styles that is reflected in narratives of different modalities. Nonetheless, these topics need to be further researched to overcome present limitations.

MEmoFC: introducing the Multilingual Emotional Football Corpus

This paper introduces a new corpus of paired football match reports, the Multilingual Emotional Football Corpus, (MEmoFC), which has been manually collected from English, German, and Dutch websites of individual football clubs to investigate the way different emotional states (e.g. happiness for winning and disappointment for losing) are realized in written language. In addition to the reports, it also contains the statistics for the selected matches. MEmoFC is a corpus consisting of comparable subcorpora since the authors of the texts report on the same event from two different perspectives—the winner’s and the loser’s side, and from an arguably more neutral perspective in tied matches. We demonstrate how the corpus can be used to investigate the influence of affect on the reports through different approaches and illustrate how game outcome influences (1) references to the own team and the opponent, and (2) the use of positive and negative emotion terms in the different languages. The MEmoFC corpus, together with the analyzed aspects of emotional language will open up new approaches for targeted automatic generation of texts.

Language and Emotion - A Foosball Study: The Influence of Affective State on Language Production in a Competitive Setting

Our affective state is influenced by daily events and our interactions with other people, which, in turn, can affect the way we communicate. In two studies, we investigated the influence of experiencing success or failure in a foosball (table soccer) game on participants’ affective state and how this in turn influenced the way they report on the game itself. Winning or losing a match can further influence how they view their own team (compared to the opponent), which may also impact how they report on the match. In Study 1, we explored this by having participants play foosball matches in two dyads. They subsequently reported their affective state and team cohesiveness, and wrote two match reports, one from their own and one from their opponent’s perspective. Indeed, while the game generally improved participants’ moods, especially winning made them happier and more excited and losing made them more dejected, both in questionnaires and in the reports, which were analyzed with a word count tool. Study 2 experimentally investigated the effect of affective state on focus and distancing behavior. After the match, participants chose between preselected sentences (from Study 1) that differed in focus (mentioning the own vs. other team) or distancing (using we vs. the team name). Results show an effect for focus: winning participants preferred sentences that described their own performance positively while losing participants chose sentences that praised their opponent over negative sentences about themselves. No effect of distancing in pronoun use was found: winning and losing participants equally preferred the use of we vs. the use of their own team name. We discuss the implications of our findings with regard to models of language production, the self-serving bias, and the use of games to induce emotions in a natural way.

Autobiographical memory coherence and specificity: Examining their reciprocal relation and their associations with internalizing symptoms and rumination

Autobiographical memories consist of different features that have been shown to relate to psychological well-being and psychopathology. Two such characteristics show quite some overlap, namely memory coherence and memory specificity, although their association has never been investigated before. In this study, we examined the association between memory coherence and memory specificity in a sample of first-year psychology students. Additionally, to gain more insight into the relation between memory coherence and psychopathology, we investigated the association with known correlates of memory specificity, namely internalizing symptoms and rumination. We found that narrating about personal experiences in a coherent manner is related to retrieving more specific memories. However, the association between memory coherence and memory specificity was rather weak. Furthermore, we found that memory coherence was negatively associated with the level of depressive symptoms and could predict these symptoms even after controlling for memory specificity and rumination. Given the potential clinical importance of these findings, future research should focus on examining the specific circumstances in which memory coherence is related to psychopathology, and on mechanisms that could explain this association.

Intrapersonal Emotion Regulation Processes Influence What Children Remember About Their Emotional Experiences

Little work has tested how emotion regulation (ER) processes influence children's memory for negative experiences. We investigated how two intrapersonal ER processes (affect-biased attention and changes in negative feelings) predicted children's (N = 184, 93 girls, ages 3-11) memory. Recall of a sad or scary film was tested after a delay. The way discrete emotional information was remembered varied with ER and children's age. Older children with greater affect-biased attention or less reduction of fear demonstrated privileged memory for central information from the scary film. Older children with greater affect-biased attention but greater reductions in sadness recalled more from the sad film overall. Findings suggest ER processes should be considered when examining children's memory for negative emotional information.

Confabulation: Developing the 'emotion dysregulation' hypothesis

Confabulations offer unique opportunities for establishing the neurobiological basis of delusional thinking. As regards causal factors, a review of the confabulation literature suggests that neither amnesia nor executive impairment can be the sole (or perhaps even the primary) cause of all delusional beliefs - though they may act in concert with other factors. A key perspective in the modern literature is that many delusions have an emotionally positive or 'wishful' element, that may serve to modulate or manage emotional experience. Some authors have referred to this perspective as the 'emotion dysregulation' hypothesis. In this article we review the theoretical underpinnings of this approach, and develop the idea by suggesting that the positive aspects of confabulatory states may have a role in perpetuating the imbalance between cognitive control and emotion. We draw on existing evidence from fields outside neuropsychology, to argue for three main causal factors: that positive emotions are related to more global or schematic forms of cognitive processing; that positive emotions influence the accuracy of memory recollection; and that positive emotions make people more susceptible to false memories. These findings suggest that the emotions that we want to feel (or do not want to feel) can influence the way we reconstruct past experiences and generate a sense of self - a proposition that bears on a unified theory of delusional belief states.

The effects of exposure to dynamic expressions of affect on 5-month-olds' memory

The purpose of this study was to examine the behavioral effects of adults' communicated affect on 5-month-olds' visual recognition memory. Five-month-olds were exposed to a dynamic and bimodal happy, angry, or neutral affective (face-voice) expression while familiarized to a novel geometric image. After familiarization to the geometric image and exposure to the affective expression, 5-month-olds received either a 5-min or 1-day retention interval. Following the 5-min retention interval, infants exposed to the happy affective expressions showed a reliable preference for a novel geometric image compared to the recently familiarized image. Infants exposed to the neutral or angry affective expression failed to show a reliable preference following a 5-min delay. Following the 1-day retention interval, however, infants exposed to the neutral expression showed a reliable preference for the novel geometric image. These results are the first to demonstrate that 5-month-olds' visual recognition memory is affected by the presentation of affective information at the time of encoding.

Stress at encoding, context at retrieval, and children's narrative content

Research concerning the relations between stress and children's memory has been primarily correlational and focused on memory volume and accuracy. In the current study, we experimentally manipulated 7- and 8-year-olds' and 12- to 14-year-olds' experienced stress during a to-be-remembered event to examine the effects of stress on the content of their memory. We further manipulated the degree of interviewer support at retrieval to determine whether it moderated the effects of stress at encoding on memory. Children's age, gender, stress at encoding, and interviewer support all influenced the type of information included in their narrative reports. Most notably, across ages, children who experienced a more stressful event but were questioned in a supportive manner provided the largest ratio of terms representing internal states such as those about cognitions and emotions. Results suggest that how children process past events may be influenced by both the nature of the event itself and the context within which it is recalled.

Facilitating Maltreated Children's Use of Emotional Language

This study examined the effects of rapport (emotional, National Institute of Child Health and Human Development [NICHD]) and prompt type (what-next, cued-action, cued-emotion, what-think) on one hundred forty-two 4-9-year-old maltreated children's spontaneous and prompted emotional language. Children in the emotional-rapport condition narrated the last time they felt good and the last time they felt bad on the playground. Children in the NICHD-rapport condition narrated their last birthday party and what happened yesterday. Following rapport, all children were presented a series of story stems about positive and negative situations. Emotional-rapport minimally affected children's use of emotional language. Cued-emotion prompts were most productive in eliciting emotional language. Overall, there were few effects because of age. Children often produced less emotional language when describing negative events, particularly with respect to their spontaneous utterances, suggesting reluctance. These differences largely disappeared when children were asked additional questions, particularly cued-emotion questions. The results offer support for cued-emotion prompts as a means of increasing maltreated children's use of emotional language.

Gender differences in autobiographical narratives: he shoots and scores; she evaluates and interprets

Research on autobiographical narratives consistently demonstrates that whereas women's narratives emphasize evaluative information, men's narratives are factually oriented. These narrative differences might reflect gender differences in either the autobiographical knowledge base or the way information from the knowledge base is selected when a narrative is constructed. The present experiment evaluated these two (potentially complementary) hypotheses by assessing memory soon after an event and after a period of 6 weeks, using both open-ended (narrative) and factually oriented (questionnaire) measures. Consistent with past literature, women told longer, richer, more evaluative narratives than did men. However, men recalled more factual information both initially and after 6 weeks and also constructed narratives that were more factually oriented. These data suggest that men and women value factual information differently and that these differences influence both the contents of the autobiographical knowledge base and the way that information in the knowledge base is used to construct personal narratives.

Coherence of Personal Narratives across the Lifespan: A Multidimensional Model and Coding Method

Personal narratives are integral to autobiographical memory and to identity, with coherent personal narratives being linked to positive developmental outcomes across the lifespan. In this article, we review the theoretical and empirical literature that sets the stage for a new lifespan model of personal narrative coherence. This new model integrates context, chronology, and theme as essential dimensions of personal narrative coherence, each of which relies upon different developmental achievements and has a different developmental trajectory across the lifespan. A multidimensional method of coding narrative coherence (the Narrative Coherence Coding Scheme or NaCCS) was derived from the model and is described here. The utility of this approach is demonstrated by its application to 498 narratives that were collected in six laboratories from participants ranging in age from 3 years to adulthood. The value of the model is illustrated further by a discussion of its potential to guide future research on the developmental foundations of narrative coherence and on the benefits of personal narrative coherence for different aspects of psychological functioning.

Effects of event valence on long-term memory for two baseball championship games

We investigated how event valence affected accuracy and vividness of long-term memory for two comparable public events. In 2008, 1,563 fans answered questions about objective details concerning two decisive baseball championship games between the Yankees (2003 winners) and the Red Sox (2004 winners). Both between- and within-groups analyses indicated that fans remembered the game their team won significantly more accurately than the game their team lost. Fans also reported more vividness and more rehearsal for the game their team won. We conclude that individuals rehearse positive events more than comparable negative events, and that this additional rehearsal increases both vividness and accuracy of memories about positive events. Our results differ from those of prior studies involving memories for negative events that may have been unavoidably rehearsed; such rehearsal may have kept those memories from fading. Long-term memory for an event is determined not only by the valence of the event, but also by experiences after the event.

Personal narratives, well-being, and gender in adolescence

Relations between narratives, especially the inclusion of internal state language within narratives, and well-being have been found in adults. However, research with adolescents has been sparse and the findings inconsistent. We examined gender differences in adolescents' personal autobiographical narratives as well as relations between internal state language and emotional well-being. Mirroring previous research with different age groups, we found that females narrate both positive and negative personal experiences in more emotional ways than do males. Also, adolescent females include more cognitive processing words indicative of self-reflection than do adolescent males. Adolescent males who told personal narratives richer in internal state language displayed higher levels of well-being, but there were no relations between internal state language in personal narratives and well-being for adolescent females. These results are interpreted in terms of gender differences in emotional processing and understanding. Directions for future research are discussed.

Emotion and autobiographical memory

Autobiographical memory encompasses our recollections of specific, personal events. In this article, we review the interactions between emotion and autobiographical memory, focusing on two broad ways in which these interactions occur. First, the emotional content of an experience can influence the way in which the event is remembered. Second, emotions and emotional goals experienced at the time of autobiographical retrieval can influence the information recalled. We discuss the behavioral manifestations of each of these types of interactions and describe the neural mechanisms that may support those interactions. We discuss how findings from the clinical literature (e.g., regarding depression) and the social psychology literature (e.g., on emotion regulation) might inform future investigations of the interplay between the emotions experienced at the time of retrieval and the memories recalled, and we present ideas for future research in this domain.

Meaning making in mothers' and children's narratives of emotional events

Narrative coherence and the inclusion of mental state language are critical aspects of meaning making, especially about stressful events. Mothers and their 8- to 12-year-old children with asthma independently narrated a time they were scared, frustrated, and happy. Although mothers' narratives were generally more coherent and more saturated with mental state language than children's narratives, for both mothers and children narratives of negative events were more coherent and contained more mental state language than narratives of positive events overall, and narratives of scary events contained more mental state language than narratives of frustrating events. Coherence appears to be multifaceted, in that the three dimensions of coherence coded, context, chronology, and theme were not strongly interrelated within narratives of the same event, but use of mental state language, including cognitive-processing and emotion words, appears to be more integrated. Moreover, while thematic coherence seems to be a consistent individual narrative style across valence of event being narrated, mental state language appears to be a consistent style only across the two stressful event narratives. Finally, and quite surprisingly, there were virtually no relations between mothers' and children's narrative meaning making.

Memory and coping with stress: the relationship between cognitive-emotional distinctiveness, memory valence, and distress

Cognitive-emotional distinctiveness (CED), the extent to which an individual separates emotions from an event in the cognitive representation of the event, was explored in four studies. CED was measured using a modified multidimensional scaling procedure. The first study found that lower levels of CED in memories of the September 11 terrorist attacks predicted greater frequency of intrusive thoughts about the attacks. The second study revealed that CED levels are higher in negative events, in comparison to positive events and that low CED levels in emotionally intense negative events are associated with a pattern of greater event-related distress. The third study replicated the findings from the previous study when examining CED levels in participants' memories of the 2004 Presidential election. The fourth study revealed that low CED in emotionally intense negative events is associated with worse mental health. We argue that CED is an adaptive and healthy coping feature of stressful memories.

Pleasantness bias in flashbulb memories: positive and negative flashbulb memories of the fall of the Berlin Wall among East and West Germans

Flashbulb memories for the fall of the Berlin Wall were examined among 103 East and West Germans who considered the event as either highly positive or highly negative. The participants in the positive group rated their memories higher on measures of reliving and sensory imagery, whereas their memory for facts was less accurate than that of the participants in the negative group. The participants in the negative group had higher ratings on amount of consequences but had talked less about the event and considered it less central to their personal and national identity than did the participants in the positive group. In both groups, rehearsal and the centrality of the memory to the person's identity and life story correlated positively with memory qualities. The results suggest that positive and negative emotions have different effects on the processing and long-term retention of flashbulb memories.

When the Red Sox shocked the Yankees: comparing negative and positive memories

The present study examined whether positive or negative valence affects the amount of detail remembered about a public event, and whether positive or negative valence alters other memory characteristics (consistency, vividness, and confidence). Memory for the final game of the Boston Red Sox-New York Yankees 2004 American League playoff series was assessed in individuals who found the event highly positive, highly negative, or neutral (i.e., Red Sox fans, Yankees fans, and fans of neither team). Valence did not affect the number of personal details recalled, but it did affect memory consistency (greatest for the negative-event group) and memory overconfidence (apparent only in the positive-event group). These results indicate that positive events can be remembered with the same types of distortions that have been shown previously for negative events. Moreover, it appears that, in comparison with negative valence, positive valence sometimes can be associated with decreased memory consistency and increased memory overconfidence.