Abstract
Narrative is the primary medium through which experience is represented, remembered and shared with others. It has the tendency to unify experience in an abstract linear form. The degree to which this is done is designated narrative form. Mori uses a multidimensional single case analysis to explore how the form of a narrative differs between an experience of real contact with the environment and an experience communicated by another or a ‘real’ experience repeated several times in conversation. I commend Mori’s experimental setup as modeling everyday life activities and for arriving at a theory that applies to all cases. However, I argue (using data from my own experiment on narrative and remembering) that the idiographic approach can be fruitfully supplemented with (1) an analysis of the sample as a whole and (2) narrative content in addition to form.
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Notes
The film can be watched online at: http://www.anthropomorphism.org/psychology2.html
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Acknowledgements
This paper was written with the support of the Gates Cambridge Trust and the Overseas Research Student Award Scheme. I must also thank Hala Mahmoud for her comments on an earlier draft of this paper.
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Wagoner, B. Narrative Form and Content in Remembering. Integr. psych. behav. 42, 315–323 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9077-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12124-008-9077-4