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We suggest that when readers experience narratives, their expectations about the likelihood of narrative events are informed by two types of analyses. Reality-driven analyses incorporate real-world constraints involving, for example, time and space; plot-driven analyses incorporate concerns about outcomes that emerge from the plot. We explored the interaction of these two types of analyses in the application of temporal situation models. Participants read stories in which the final episode occurred after a minute time shift (i.e., "A minute later...") or hour time shift (i.e., "An hour later..."). Our experiments assessed participants' judgments and reading times for statements describing the state of events (e.g., the possibility that characters could carry out particular behaviors) following each type of time shift. Experiments 1A and 1B demonstrated that readers are appropriately sensitive to the real concomitants of time shifts. Experiments 2A and 2B demonstrated, even so, that plot-driven preferences modify judgments and reading times away from reality-driven expectations. Our results have implications for the role of the reader in theories of narrative comprehension.

The enriched environment (EC) causes morphological plasticity in striatal cells that express D1 and D2 receptors. We used radioligand binding assays to examine whether EC produces plasticity in striatal receptor density and receptor density ratios. After 30 days of EC, 2-year-old rats had a higher ratio of D1 to muscarinic receptors in striatum relative to singly housed rats. Assays also showed trends for a greater ratio of D1 to cannabinoid receptors and a greater density of D1 receptors in striatum after EC. D2 receptor density was unaffected by the EC condition.

To understand eponymous verb phrases such as “do a John Travolta,” readers cannot merely select a sense out of a mental lexicon (sense selection). They must create new senses (sense creation) by retrieving salient information from memory. We conducted two experiments to test the hypothesis that these processes of memory retrieval parallel those used for ordinary lexical ambiguities. To prepare for Experiment 1, we gathered readers’ interpretations of eponymous verb phrases like “do a John Travolta” to establish dominant and subordinate interpretations. We then wrote story contexts that biased comprehension toward one or the other interpretation. In Experiment 1, paraphrase judgment times were used to demonstrate that dominant meanings are privileged in the sense that they are accessible even when the story creates a subordinate bias. In Experiment 2, this privilege faded somewhat when there was a delay before the paraphrase judgment. We discuss the results with respect to the distinction between sense selection and sense creation.