Surprise! An Investigation of Orienting Responses to Test Assumptions of Narrative Processing

Sukalla, Freya; Shoenberger, Heather; Bolls, Paul D.

doi:10.1177/0093650215596363

Cited by 17 publications

(4 citation statements)

References 34 publications

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“…Other behavioral measures can serve as proxies or indicators for surprise as well, and one could, for instance, use pitch levels in verbal utterances (e.g., Ververidis et al, 2004) or facial expression (e.g., Cohn et al, 1998) as behavioral proxies for surprise. The same goes for physiological measures such as heart rate variability (Andersen et al, 2020; Sukalla et al, 2016), which nowadays can be easily measured in real-life settings in noninvasive ways.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Play in predictive minds: A cognitive theory of play.

Andersen¹,

Kiverstein²,

Miller³

et al. 2023

Psychological Review

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In this article, we argue that a predictive processing framework (PP) may provide elements for a proximate model of play in children and adults. We propose that play is a behavior in which the agent, in contexts of freedom from the demands of certain competing cognitive systems, deliberately seeks out or creates surprising situations that gravitate toward sweet-spots of relative complexity with the goal of resolving surprise. We further propose that play is experientially associated with a feel-good quality because the agent is reducing significant levels of prediction error (i.e., surprise) faster than expected. We argue that this framework can unify a range of well-established findings in play and developmental research that highlights the role of play in learning, and that casts children as Bayesian learners. The theory integrates the role of positive valence in play (i.e., explaining why play is fun); and what it is to be in a playful mood. Central to the account is the idea that playful agents may create and establish an environment tailored to the generation and further resolution of surprise and uncertainty. Play emerges here as a variety of niche construction where the organism modulates its physical and social environment in order to maximize the productive potential of surprise.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Play in predictive minds: A cognitive theory of play.

Andersen¹,

Kiverstein²,

Miller³

et al. 2023

Psychological Review

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“…Galvanic skin response and heart rate variability are of specific interest since these measures indicate the extent to which a person is emotionally aroused. Both measures have been successfully employed in recent studies on narrative processing (e.g., Sukalla et al, 2015 ).…”

Section: Multidimensional Linguistic Cues Frameworkmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evoking and Measuring Identification with Narrative Characters – A Linguistic Cues Framework

2017

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Current research on identification with narrative characters poses two problems. First, although identification is seen as a dynamic process of which the intensity varies during reading, it is usually measured by means of post-reading questionnaires containing self-report items. Second, it is not clear which linguistic characteristics evoke identification. The present paper proposes that an interdisciplinary framework allows for more precise manipulations and measurements of identification, which will ultimately advance our understanding of the antecedents and nature of this process. The central hypothesis of our Linguistic Cues Framework is that identification with a narrative character is a multidimensional experience for which different dimensions are evoked by different linguistic cues. The first part of the paper presents a literature review on identification, resulting in a renewed conceptualization of identification which distinguishes six dimensions: a spatiotemporal, a perceptual, a cognitive, a moral, an emotional, and an embodied dimension. The second part argues that each of these dimensions is influenced by specific linguistic cues which represent various aspects of the narrative character’s perspective. The proposed relations between linguistic cues and identification dimensions are specified in six propositions. The third part discusses what psychological and neurocognitive methods enable the measurement of the various identification dimensions in order to test the propositions. By establishing explicit connections between the linguistic characteristics of narratives and readers’ physical, psychological, and neurocognitive responses to narratives, this paper develops a research agenda for future empirical research on identification with narrative characters.

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“…A wealth of research has demonstrated that momentary prediction errors, or surprises, are particularly well-remembered 1,2,[7][8][9][10][11][12] and that an array of physiological and mental processes seem to underpin these memory benefits. For instance, surprise engages the dopaminergic and serotonergic midbrain systems 7,10,[13][14][15][16][17] , alters and enhances hippocampal activity 16,[18][19][20][21][22][23][24] , increases pupil dilation 7,[25][26][27][28][29] , and enhances perceptual 13,16,30,31 and attentional processing 8,[32][33][34][35][36][37][38][39] to the surprising stimulus. Surprises can be further differentiated into events that are better than expected for the agent because they signal reward (+ reward prediction error, or + signed surprise) and others that are worse than expected (-signed surprise) [40][41][42]…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term, multi-event surprise enhances autobiographical memory

Antony

Barnett

Bennion

2022

Preprint

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Neurobiological models of learning emphasize the importance of prediction errors (surprises) for memory formation. These effects have focused on memory for information surrounding a momentary surprising event; however, it is less clear whether surprise that unfolds across multiple events and timescales impacts memory. We asked basketball fans about their most positive and negative autobiographical memories of individual plays, games, and seasons, allowing surprise measurements spanning seconds, hours, and months. We used advanced analytics on National Basketball Association play-by-play data and betting odds spanning 17 seasons, >22K games, >5.6M plays to compute and align the estimated surprise values of each memory. We found that surprising events biased positive memories on the scale of seconds and months and negative memories across all three timescales. Critically, game and season memories could not be explained by surprise at shorter timescales, suggesting that long-term, multi-event surprise influences memory. These results expand the role of surprise in models of learning and reinforce its relevance in real-world domains.

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Surprise! An Investigation of Orienting Responses to Test Assumptions of Narrative Processing

Cited by 17 publications

References 34 publications

Play in predictive minds: A cognitive theory of play.

Play in predictive minds: A cognitive theory of play.

Evoking and Measuring Identification with Narrative Characters – A Linguistic Cues Framework

Long-term, multi-event surprise enhances autobiographical memory

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