For many decisions, we encounter relevant information over the course of days, months, or years. We consume such information in various forms, including stories (qualitative content about individual instances) and statistics (quantitative data about collections of observations). This article proposes that information type—story versus statistic—shapes selective memory. In controlled experiments, we document a pronounced story-statistic gap in memory: the average impact of statistics on beliefs fades by 73% over the course of a day, but the impact of a story fades by only 32%. Guided by a model of selective memory, we disentangle different mechanisms and document that similarity relationships drive this gap. Recall of a story increases when its qualitative content is more similar to a memory prompt. Irrelevant information in memory that is similar to the prompt, on the other hand, competes for retrieval with relevant information, impeding successful recall.

中文翻译：

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故事、统计数据和内存


对于许多决策，我们会在几天、几个月或几年的时间里遇到相关信息。我们以各种形式使用此类信息，包括故事（关于单个实例的定性内容）和统计数据（关于观察集合的定量数据）。本文提出信息类型（故事与统计数据）塑造选择性记忆。在对照实验中，我们记录了记忆中一个明显的故事统计差距：统计数据对信念的平均影响在一天内消退了 73%，但故事的影响只消退了 32%。在选择性记忆模型的指导下，我们解开了不同的机制，并记录了相似性关系导致了这种差距。当故事的定性内容更类似于记忆提示时，对故事的回忆会增加。另一方面，内存中与提示类似的不相关信息会与相关信息竞争检索，从而阻碍成功调用。