Retrieval of scripted concepts

The centrality of a concept within a scripted memory structure is defined by the number of associative connections the concept has to other concepts within the structure. This paper reports four experiments which investigated the relation between degree of centrality of scripted concepts (central, peripheral) and the retrievability of those concepts from episodic text memory. In the experiments, subjects read scripted texts in which central and peripheral target nouns had been mentioned one time, and immediately after each text, subjects took a noun recognition test. In Experiments 1–3, the test lists contained scripted nouns which had been in the texts and unrelated nouns which had not. Under this testing condition, central concepts showed a consistent speed and hit rate advantage over peripheral concepts. In Experiment 4, unstudied but script relevant nouns were included in the test list, and under this condition central concepts were retrieved more slowly, with higher false alarm rates, and lower d′ and β values. The combined results are analogous to the negative and positive fan effects reported by L. M. Reder and B. H. Ross (1983, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 9, 55–72); however, in the current case, fan size is determined by the preexisting connections in memory, not by the number of times a concept has been studied. We develop a process model similar to L. M. Reder's (1982, Psychological Review, 89, 250–280) to describe the retrieval of scripted concepts. Finally, we argue against the notion that scripts have representational characteristics different from other memory structures.