The role of expertise and narratorship in the creation of a shared memory

William Hirst & Adam Brown
New School for Social Research, New York

Conversations can transform initially distinctive memories of a shared experience into shared memories, in part because one conversational participant can impose his or her version of the past on other participants. The dynamics underlying the conversational implantation of memories are poorly understood. Two factors that have been mentioned as possible mediators through which conversations promote the formation of shared memories are narratorship and expertise. These factors, however, are confounded: Is an individual more likely to impose misleading information because she is a perceived expert or because she talks a lot? We will discuss experiments that piece about the role of narratorship and expertise in the formation of shared memories through conversation. We find expertise alone does not lead to a significant advantage in the creation of shared memories. It is through the dominant role an expert might play in a conversation that he or she can reshape subsequent remembering.