Studying waves of prediction in the brain using narratives

Abstract

Narrative stimuli offer a unique opportunity for research in cognitive neuroscience because they evoke cognitive processes that are difficult or impossible to study with traditional paradigms. An especially compelling feature of narratives is their temporal structure, which allows for meaningful predictions about upcoming events. As we proceed through a narrative, we can maintain a complex set of short- and long-term guesses about the future and continually refine our predictions as the story unfolds. Experiments using narratives can allow researchers to probe the ways in which memory systems are flexibly used during perception, including the mechanisms by which continuous experiences are segmented into discrete events. Despite the challenges of using narratives and other naturalistic stimuli in experimental research, these approaches offer a new window into critical components of real-world cognition.