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 paper 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、统计数据和记忆


对于许多决策，我们会在几天、几个月或几年的过程中遇到相关信息。我们以各种形式消费此类信息，包括故事（有关个体实例的定性内容）和统计数据（有关观察集合的定量数据）。本文提出信息类型——故事与统计——塑造选择性记忆。在对照实验中，我们记录了记忆中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减弱了 73%，但故事的影响仅减弱了 32%。在选择性记忆模型的指导下，我们理清了不同的机制，并记录了相似性关系推动了这一差距。当故事的定性内容更类似于记忆提示时，对故事的回忆就会增加。另一方面，记忆中与提示相似的不相关信息会与相关信息竞争检索，从而阻碍成功回忆。