Andreetta, Sara; Soldatkina, Oleksandra; Boboeva, Vezha; Treves, Alessandro; (2023) In poetry, if meter has to help memory, it takes its time [version 2; peer review: 2 approved, 2 not approved]. Open Research Europe , 1 (59) pp. 1-45. 10.12688/openreseurope.13663.2.

Preview

Text AndreettaEtAl2021.pdf - Published Version Download (1MB) | Preview

Abstract

To test the idea that poetic meter emerged as a cognitive schema to aid verbal memory, we focused on classical Italian poetry and on three components of meter: rhyme, accent, and verse length. Meaningless poems were generated by introducing prosody-invariant non-words into passages from Dante’s Divina Commedia and Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso. We then ablated rhymes, modified accent patterns, or altered the number of syllables. The resulting versions of each nonpoem were presented to Italian native speakers, who were then asked to retrieve three target non-words. Surprisingly, we found that the integrity of Dante’s meter has no significant effect on memory performance. With Ariosto, instead, removing each component downgrades memory proportionally to its contribution to perceived metric plausibility. Counterintuitively, the fully metric versions required longer reaction times, implying that activating metric schemata involves a cognitive cost. Within schema theories, this finding provides evidence for high-level interactions between procedural and episodic memory.

Download activity - last month

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Download activity - last 12 months

Export as XMLCSVJSON

Downloads by country - last 12 months

Export as JSONCSVXML

Archive Staff Only

View Item