Mindset and Expectations Influence Our Daily Experience
When someone steps from the street into a restaurant, their brain begins a new “chapter” of the day, leading to significant changes in brain activity. This kind of transition happens throughout the day as we move through various settings, whether it’s having lunch, watching our kids play soccer, or enjoying a TV show.
A recent study published in the journal Current Biology aims to uncover what factors influence the brain’s categorization of the day into distinct, memorable events. The research, led by Christopher Baldassano, an associate professor of psychology, and Alexandra De Soares, a lab member, yielded intriguing insights.
The team sought to understand what triggers the brain to mark the end of one event and the beginning of another, creating a “chapter” in our daily narrative. One hypothesis suggested that significant changes in our environment, such as entering a restaurant from the outside, are solely responsible for these chapter divisions. Alternatively, new chapters might arise from internal mental frameworks established by our previous experiences—meaning that even substantial environmental shifts could go unnoticed if they’re not aligned with our current interests and objectives.
To investigate this, the researchers created 16 audio narratives, each lasting three to four minutes, set in one of four venues (a restaurant, airport, grocery store, and lecture hall) and involving one of four social scenarios (a breakup, a proposal, a business deal, or a “meet cute”).
They discovered that how the brain segments an experience into events largely depends on the listener’s focus and interests. For instance, when participants listened to a story about a marriage proposal in a restaurant, their prefrontal cortex tended to categorize the story into events centered on the proposal, culminating in the hopeful “yes.”
However, if participants were instructed to concentrate on the couple’s dinner orders, their brains organized the story differently, treating details like ordering food as significant new chapters. Baldassano emphasized, “We aimed to challenge the idea that significant changes in brain activity marking a new chapter stem solely from outer shifts—that the brain passively responds to sensory changes. Our findings indicate the brain actively organizes our experiences into meaningful segments.”
The research team identified where new chapters were created by analyzing MRI scans to detect changes in brain activity. In another group, participants indicated with button presses when they perceived a new section of the story beginning.
Results showed that the way stories were segmented depended on the perspective participants were encouraged to adopt. This principle wasn’t confined to the proposal scenario; for example, someone hearing a breakup story in an airport could discern new chapters at key points, such as going through security or reaching the gate, if told to focus on the airport environment. Likewise, during a tale about a person completing a business transaction while grocery shopping, the listener’s focus could potentially lead them to mark new chapters based on either the deal’s progression or the shopping steps.
Looking ahead, the researchers plan to explore how expectations affect long-term memory. As part of their study, they also asked participants to recount everything they remembered about each story. They are currently analyzing the data to see how the prompted perspective during story listening influences memory recall. This research is part of a broader initiative to create a cohesive theory concerning how we compartmentalize real-life experiences into memory events. The findings suggest that prior knowledge and expectations play a crucial role in this cognitive process.
Baldassano referred to this project as a personal passion. “Tracking how brain activity patterns evolve over time poses significant challenges requiring advanced analytical methods,” he mentioned. “Utilizing meaningful narratives and mathematical models to uncover new insights about cognition reflects the innovative research spirit in my lab that I find most fulfilling and exciting.”
