Recognition memory for typical and atypical actions in scripted activities: Tests of a script pointer + tag hypothesis

A script pointer+tag hypothesis assumes that the conceptual representation which interrelates actions in scripted activities, for example, going to a restaurant, consists of a “pointer” to a generic script as a whole, plus a “tag” for each action that is not typical of the generic script. The hypothesis predicts, and two experiments confirmed, that (a) memory discrimination is better for atypical actions in a passage than for typical script actions and (b) there is no memory discrimination for very typical actions. The typicality of actions robustly predicted false alarm rates but not hit rates. The results suggested that discriminative accuracy is best explained by properties of a passage's representation rather than the amount of cognitive resources allocated at acquisition.