[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":3,"doc-seo-157175-105":59,"doc-detail-157175-en":130},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",[7,13,18,23,28,33,38,43,48,51,55],{"id":8,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":10,"show_sort_weight":11,"slug":12},1,"Document","Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":14,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":15,"show_sort_weight":16,"slug":17},2,"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":19,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":20,"show_sort_weight":21,"slug":22},4,"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":24,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":25,"show_sort_weight":26,"slug":27},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":29,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":30,"show_sort_weight":31,"slug":32},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":34,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":35,"show_sort_weight":36,"slug":37},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":39,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":40,"show_sort_weight":41,"slug":42},8,"Research & Report",30,"research-report",{"id":44,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":45,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":47},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":46,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":49,"show_sort_weight":46,"slug":50},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":52,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":53,"show_sort_weight":52,"slug":54},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":56,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":9,"category_name":57,"show_sort_weight":24,"slug":58},19,"General","general",{"code":4,"msg":60,"data":61},"ok",{"site_id":62,"language":63,"slug":64,"title":65,"keywords":66,"description":67,"schema_data":68,"social_meta":123,"head_meta":125,"extra_data":127,"updated_unix":129},105,"en","character-tracking-and-the-understanding-of-narratives-brian-j-reiser","CHARACTER TRACKING AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF NARRATIVES - Brian J. Reiser","","The document examines how perspective shapes comprehension of natural language narratives. It argues that readers track the goals and plans of a focused character, evaluating incoming events through that character’s knowledge and subjective experiences. This focused tracking constrains inference, avoiding a combinatorial explosion that would arise from continuously representing all characters’ motivations. Point of view can be signaled syntactically and by differential information about characters, affecting recall and summarization. Preliminary Yale Cognitive Science experiments are presented as support for the perspective-driven prediction about event importance.",{"@graph":69,"@context":122},[70,84,105],{"@type":71,"itemListElement":72},"BreadcrumbList",[73,77,79,82],{"item":74,"name":75,"@type":76,"position":8},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":78,"name":9,"@type":76,"position":14},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/",{"item":80,"name":40,"@type":76,"position":81},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",3,{"item":83,"name":65,"@type":76,"position":19},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/character-tracking-and-the-understanding-of-narratives-brian-j-reiser/157175/",{"url":83,"name":65,"@type":85,"image":86,"author":91,"headline":65,"publisher":94,"fileFormat":97,"inLanguage":63,"description":67,"dateModified":98,"datePublished":99,"encodingFormat":97,"isAccessibleForFree":100,"interactionStatistic":101},"DigitalDocument",{"url":87,"@type":88,"width":89,"height":90},"https://docshare.wps.com/thumbnails/character-tracking-and-the-understanding-of-narratives-brian-j-reiser/157175.png","ImageObject",300,407,{"name":92,"@type":93},"Levi","Person",{"url":74,"name":95,"@type":96},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-10-29","2026-08-29",true,{"@type":102,"interactionType":103,"userInteractionCount":44},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":104},"ViewAction",{"@type":106,"mainEntity":107},"FAQPage",[108,114,118],{"name":109,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":111},"How does perspective influence understanding of a narrative?","Question",{"text":112,"@type":113},"Perspective influences interpretation by filtering inputs through the system’s knowledge and the subjective experiences attributed to the focused character. It also focuses processing attention on one key character’s goals and plans.","Answer",{"name":115,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":116},"What mechanism is proposed to explain how readers comprehend stories?",{"text":117,"@type":113},"Understanding is modeled as focused tracking of a character’s goal fate. Each new input is evaluated from that character’s perspective, which constrains inference and reduces irrelevant processing.",{"name":119,"@type":110,"acceptedAnswer":120},"How can a narrative establish point of view?",{"text":121,"@type":113},"Point of view can be established through syntactic cues, by providing more information about a character (such as more episodes about their experiences), and by conveying internal information like thoughts and feelings.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":83,"og:type":124,"og:title":65,"og:site_name":95,"og:description":67},"article",{"robots":126,"canonical":83},"index,follow",{"doc_id":128,"site_id":62},157175,1790348856,{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":131},{"doc_id":128,"user_id":132,"nickname":92,"user_avatar":133,"doc_module":4,"category_id":39,"category_name":40,"doc_title":65,"doc_description":67,"doc_content":134,"file_id":135,"file_url":136,"file_type":137,"file_size":138,"view_count":44,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":8,"is_downloadable":8,"audit_status":8,"page_count":81,"language":139,"language_code":63,"site_id":62,"html_lang":63,"table_of_contents":140,"faqs":141,"seo_title":142,"seo_description":67,"update_tm":143,"read_time":39,"preview_page_count":4},7971461740909,"https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_155a257f0dc6eb9ab79c44ca47cae57d","CHARACTER TRACKING AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF NARRATIVES  \nBrian J. Reiser  \nCognitive Science Program  \nYale University  \nNew Haven , CT 06520  \n/ . Perspective In Undemanding  \nRecent work on the understanding of natural language narratives has emphasized representations composed of goals, plans, and their outcomes. Causal chains [121 , hierarchical goal/outcome graphs [3][16], story grammar parse trees [9][10]  \n[15], and causally linked networks [6][7] have been proposed as models of the mental representation of a story. A problem that has received little attention however is the influence of perspective in understanding a narrative. Perspective may operate on many levels. Inputs are understood by evaluating them in terms of the system's knowledge , which is often based on subjectively interpreted personal experiences. Thus , understanders having different belief systems may interpret the same story in different ways [5] .  \nPerspective also affects understanding by serving to focus the processing. Attention becomes focused on one key character during the understanding of a narrative. A plausible hypothesis is that we pay most attention to the goals and plans of the character we are focusing on , and are concerned with the goals and plans of other characters only to the extent that they conflict with or further the goals of the tracked character. Although personal factors may certainly influence which character in a narrative one will identify with , the text itself typically is written to focus attention on one of the characters , and the understander usually adopts that perspective. Point of view may be established in a narrative by (1) simple syntactic cues; (2) conveying more information about a character, e.g. , more episodes relating his or her experiences; (3) conveying more internal information (i. e . , thoughts and feelings) about a character. Once the point of view has been established , more processing work is devoted to that character. More inferences should be made about the character's goals and affective reactions. The other characters are understood only to the extent that their motivations and actions will bear on the main character. The representation will then be built from the main character's perspective, so that recall or summarization will produce more details directly relevant to that character, and will express such details from his point of view. Just as activation of a schema directs processing and causes a number of inferences to fire [11], so does focusing on a character cause more processing to fill out the conceptual picture of the story from that character's point of view.  \nConsider the following two introductions to a story. An event and goal oriented understander that processed these stories from a neutral perspective would presumably build the same  \nrepresentation for each story , inferring motivations and reactions for each character whenever possible.  \nHowever, it seems likely that in fact the two representations would differ. By the third criteria suggested above , the representation of Story 1 would be built from Davids perspective, while in Story 2 , it would be built from Ken's perspective. Processing of the rest of the story should then proceed from the focused character's perspective.  \n(1) David was still new in town , and felt very lonely. He was just starting to feel comfortable settling into his new highschool.  \nKen and David met in their Geometry class. Ken always had something to do and had a very active social life at school. Susan was one of the girls that Ken was seeing. David wanted to date Susan and told Ken. David asked Ken to stop dating Susan so he could have a chance with her. Ken laughed and yelled at David, and refused his request.  \n(2) David was still new in town , and didn l know many people. He was just starting to participate in some activities athis new high school.  \nKen and David met in their Geometry class. Ken enjoyed having a very active social life ","cbCaifjc9bFPshCz","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaifjc9bFPshCz","pdf",129818,"English","# Some Empirical Demonstrations of Perspective\n## Focused character tracking and inference constraints\n## Point of view establishment and processing consequences","[{\"question\":\"How does perspective influence understanding of a narrative?\",\"answer\":\"Perspective influences interpretation by filtering inputs through the system’s knowledge and the subjective experiences attributed to the focused character. It also focuses processing attention on one key character’s goals and plans.\"},{\"question\":\"What mechanism is proposed to explain how readers comprehend stories?\",\"answer\":\"Understanding is modeled as focused tracking of a character’s goal fate. Each new input is evaluated from that character’s perspective, which constrains inference and reduces irrelevant processing.\"},{\"question\":\"How can a narrative establish point of view?\",\"answer\":\"Point of view can be established through syntactic cues, by providing more information about a character (such as more episodes about their experiences), and by conveying internal information like thoughts and feelings.\"}]","CHARACTER TRACKING AND THE UNDERSTANDING OF NARRATIVES - Brian J. Reiser | PDF",1787974956]