Autobiographical memory and autobiographical narrative of a staged event: The influence of the listener

The purpose of the present study was to investigate the role of narration and listen-ing conditions in autobiographical memory of a staged event. Eighty young adultswere recruited for the present research. First, they were interviewed on currentissues (staged event). Second, they were asked to complete a memory questionnaireabout the content of the interview. Then, they were assigned to three retrieval con-ditions: narration to an empathic listener, narration to a detached listener, and retriev-ing thinking silently about the event. Finally, 1 week later, the participants were askedto complete the memory questionnaire again to assess the influence of narration andlistening conditions on memory. The results show that the experimental conditionssignificantly influenced the memory trend for a staged event. The emphatic listeningcondition promoted memory significantly more than did the other two conditions.The authors interpret these results in terms of the theory of narrativization