The Role of Mental Simulation for Differences in Memory Qualities Between Real and Fictional Events

Remembered experienced events are associated with memory qualities, such as clarity and visual details. Recent findings by Gander and Lowe suggest that reading about negative fictional, as opposed to factual, events results in memories with higher clarity. Here, we attempted to replicate these previous findings. We consider the fiction-simulation hypothesis as an explanation: engaging with fiction involves a higher degree of mental simulation and through increased imagery leads to memories with higher clarity. In two preregistered studies (N = 131 and N = 254) we labelled stories as either fact or fiction and measured participants’ experienced memory qualities and mental simulation. The results indicated that the earlier finding was not replicated and no differences in memory qualities or mental simulation were found comparing fact and fiction. The results align with previous research which has not found differences in memory qualities between fact and fiction, and we conclude that the finding from the original study does not hold.