Review
The neuropsychology of narrative: story comprehension, story production and their interrelation

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Abstract

Stories are used extensively for human communication; both the comprehension and production of oral and written narratives constitute a fundamental part of our experience. While study of this topic has largely been the domain of cognitive psychology, neuroscience has also made progress in uncovering the processes underlying these abilities. In an attempt to synthesize work from both literatures, this review: (1) summarizes the current neuroimaging and patient research pertaining to narrative comprehension and production, (2) attempts to integrate this information with the processes described by the discourse models of cognitive psychology, and (3) uses this information to examine the possible interrelation between comprehension and production. Story comprehension appears to entail a network of frontal, temporal and cingulate areas that support working-memory and theory-of-mind processes. The specific functions associated with these areas are congruent with the processes proposed by cognitive models of comprehension. Moreover, these same areas appear necessary for story production, and the causal-temporal ordering of selected information may partially account for this common ground. A basic description of comprehension and production based solely on neuropsychological evidence is presented to complement current cognitive models, and a number of avenues for future research are suggested.

Introduction

Human experience, both interpersonal and intrapersonal, is highly influenced by the act of comprehending stories, producing stories, and executing the subprocesses that enable such understanding and productions. As narrative consumers we appear insatiable, finding the personal stories of others absolutely compelling (e.g. anecdotes or gossip) and spending a great deal of time engaged with novels, plays, films and television shows (i.e. crafted or “public” narratives). This affinity for narrative emerges at a very young age, when we develop deep and long-lasting emotional attachments to the storybooks and movies that surround us at childhood (Alexander, Miller, & Hengst, 2001). Importantly, our interactions with fictional narratives should not be viewed as frivolous; stories have the power to change our beliefs about the real world. Researchers have repeatedly found that reader attitudes shift to become more congruent with the ideas expressed in a narrative after exposure to fiction (Green & Brock, 2000; Prentice, Gerrig, & Bailis, 1997; Strange & Leung, 1999; Wheeler, Green, & Brock, 1999).

As human communicators we are prolific story producers, predominately utilizing a distinctly story-like structure to communicate with others (Miller, 1995; Schank & Abelson, 1995). This structured narration of experience is also not to be taken lightly, as it appears necessary for maximal health. Researchers have found that the more coherent and organized an account that one creates for a past trauma, the greater the likelihood of salutary gains as a result of such narration (Pennebaker & Graybeal, 2001; Pennebaker & Seagal, 1999; Smyth, 1998). Along similar lines, many clinicians have posited that creating a coherent story of a traumatic event and incorporating it into one’s self-representation is fundamental for the successful treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder (Brewin, Dalgleish, & Joseph, 1996; Herman, 1992; van der Kolk & Fisler, 1995). The benefits of narration may also generalize beyond the realm of personal trauma; some evidence exists that similar advantages accrue when the content of personal narrations are future-oriented and distinctly non-traumatic (King, 2001). Storytelling is thus not only a native element of our social interactions, from a health standpoint there is evidence to suggest it may also be a necessary one.

Aside from the direct expression and consumption of stories, there is evidence to suggest that we may use processes akin to narrative construction in the formation of our individual history. Humans select and order personal memories, building a coherent and organized representation of the self (i.e. a ‘self-narrative’; Gergen & Gergen, 1988; Habermas & Bluck, 2000). These same processes may also be employed when we make reasoned judgements. In a judiciary context, researchers have found that jurors arrive at courtroom verdicts based upon the creation and coherence-testing of multiple different stories constructed to account for the presented evidence (Pennington and Hastie, 1986, Pennington and Hastie, 1992).

In psychology, the study of narrative processes has primarily fallen within the domain of cognitive psychology, although the broad appeal of this topic is reflected in the large number of researchers labouring in a variety of other disciplines. Despite the distributed nature of research in this area, however, the synthesis of ideas from different domains is disappointingly rare. The current review hopes to address one specific absence of integration, that between narrative neuroscience and the discourse models of cognitive psychology. This particular omission is especially striking given that cognitive processing is necessarily bounded by the limits of neural architecture. The current writing attempts to draw cognitive theory and neuropsychology closer together, in the hopes that their marriage will be of mutual benefit to both areas. Admittedly, there are some formidable hurdles to such an attempt. First, the body of brain research specifically devoted to narrative is relatively young and by no means extensive. There exists, nevertheless, enough research within the neuropsychology of narrative to construct an interesting, preliminary portrait of this fundamental human process. In conjunction, work that has touched on narrative somewhat tangentially can serve a useful and illustrative, although not definitive, function. The second major hurdle is not so much an obstacle as a caution. Current knowledge of the brain and its functions does not yet approach the specificity at which most cognitive models are described. This separation inevitably raises difficult questions regarding the role of theory in neuroscientific empiricism (Jennings & Aamadot, 2000). Should cognitive models be limited to what is known about the brain? Conversely, should endeavours in brain research be constrained by the predictions of current theories? One conservative approach may be to question all models that contradict our understanding of brain processes, while provisionally retaining any model for which a coherent neural account can be made so that its predictions may be further tested. Firmly discarding or accepting individual models on the basis of brain research is thus likely to be quite difficult. It may be, however, as Gernsbacher and Kashak (2003) conclude in their review, that “making fundamental progress in understanding how the brain processes language will require the exploration of neural processing in a way that does not rely as heavily on the theoretical baggage of cognitive psychology” (p. 110).

One question that may be answered by a review of neuropsychological findings, in the absence of testing any elaborate theory, is how narrative production and comprehension might be related. To the extent that these two processes share a common substrate, one would expect to observe similar activations during brain imaging and similar brain damage in patients with these functional deficits. Divergent associations with particular brain regions should indicate the degree to which these two abilities differ, and possibly the nature of this parting. In this review, two subprocesses are hypothesized to underlie both the production and comprehension of narratives: selection and causal-temporal ordering.

In sum, this article aims to: (1) review the current neuropsychological literature on narrative, (2) compare current cognitive theories of narrative comprehension and production to these findings, and (3) investigate the relation between narrative comprehension and production. To begin, a preliminary, working definition of narrative is proffered with a particular focus on distinguishing this genre from other forms of discourse. Cognitive theories of story comprehension are then reviewed and compared to the relevant brain-imaging and lesion research. An examination of story production follows, and the relation between production and comprehension is subsequently examined.1

Section snippets

Defining narrative

One fundamental characteristic of stories is the presence of a causal event-structure. Following a distinction by Graesser, Hauft-Smith, Cohen, and Pyles (1980), a narrative presentation can be thought of as the description of a series of actions and events that unfold over time, according to causal principles. These rules of causation demand that events occur in a constrained, logically coherent order. Episodes and actions that allow for other events must take temporal precedence given the

Cognitive models of narrative comprehension

Studies of discourse tend to examine goal-based stories more often than any other genre (van Oostendorp & Goldman, 1999b). This is likely a result of the fact that cognitive models used to predict memory for and mental representations of text are most successful with respect to stories (van Oostendorp & Goldman, 1999a). While there exist a number of these models, many differ from one another at a level of detail not useful for comparison with brain areas and their known functions. The

Cognitive models of narrative production

In the 1994 Handbook of Psycholinguistics, Garnham (1994) noted that “production has always been a neglected aspect of language processing within psycholinguistics” (p. 1137). Although models for sentence-level production exist, few with regard to discourse are widely discussed. In fact, the 2003 Handbook of Discourse Processes (Graesser, Gernsbacher, & Goldman, 2003) contains little mention of production except for a few computational models which, as previously mentioned, are often too

Comparing narrative comprehension and production

A number of identical areas appear to be involved in both narrative comprehension and narrative production. Research using brain-damaged patients indicates that right hemisphere areas, particularly right frontal, are necessary for producing and comprehending discourse. The reviewed imaging studies found that both processes involved the medial and dorsolateral regions of the frontal cortex, temporal regions including the temporoparietal junction, and the posterior cingulate. Although other

Summary of the neuropsychological substrates of narrative

When the current state of the imaging literature is considered along with lesion and patient research, it is possible to pinpoint some neural substrates of narrative processes and subprocesses. The imaging studies reviewed are summarized in Table 1, with the first column containing each study, its contrast, and the imaging method used; studies that employed ROI analyses are italicized. Contrasts are typically subtractions, consisting of target task activations compared with control condition

General discussion

Narrative neuroscience is still a new area, but the preceding review has demonstrated that a number of brain structures are consistently activated during particular story processes. Furthermore, these brain areas appear to be unique to narrative-processing, separate from those identified for word and even sentence-level operations. Imaging studies that employ rigorously-controlled stimuli and control conditions, such as those by Robertson et al. (2000) and Crozier et al. (1999), reveal that

Conclusions

This review has summarized the neuroimaging and lesion research pertaining to story comprehension and production, and examined the selection and sequencing subprocesses proposed to underlie both. While the gap between cognitive and neuropsychological models remains, it has perhaps been diminished somewhat by this review. It is clear that each approach has something to offer the other, and a mutually beneficial union is certainly not out of the question. Further research, particularly imaging

Acknowledgements

Editor Morris Moscovitch and two anonymous reviewers provided numerous helpful suggestions that were used to extensively revise this manuscript, improving it greatly. As well, Colin DeYoung, Richard Gerrig, Michelle Horhota, Brian Levine, Keith Oatley, Jordan Peterson and Donald Stuss all commented on various incarnations of this manuscript and their assistance was invaluable. Any shortcomings or lacunae that remain are the author’s own. Special thanks is owed to Roberto Cabeza for his help in

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