“The major new finding in this study is that these chapters don’t just come from the way the story is written.”
Columbia researchers scanned 36 people and tested over 300 more online with 16 stories that braided two scripts, like a marriage proposal inside a restaurant meal. Priming people to watch the location shifted where they placed event boundaries and what they remembered. Priming for the social plot barely changed anything, because listeners already follow the people by default. Your memory files events by what you were told to care about.