Temporal structure of narratives reveals the intensity of the narrator’s current affective state

Abstract

Remembering on past emotional episodes frequently elicits an affective state in the remembering person, and remembering in a social context is usually accompanied by narration. This study considers the relationship between the narrator’s affective state and the structure of narratives. More specifically, the study addressees the question whether the temporal structure of narratives reveals the intensity of narrators’ current affective state. The study included 75 participants. They were asked to recount past emotion episodes applying a cue word paradigm with the following emotion category labels: anger, sadness, joy, and pride. Intensity of the narrators’ current affective state was assessed by physiological and self-report measures. The temporal structure of narratives was reflected by the two features of specific temporal reference and temporal unfolding. These features were coded by the method of automated linguistic analysis. The results show that specific temporal reference reflects affective intensity measured as the level of arousal while temporal unfolding reflects affective intensity measured as the valence of the narrator’s current affective state. Results are discussed by highlighting the function of temporal structure of narratives in reliving past experiences during narration.