Walking through doorways causes forgetting: But it may help understanding

• Event structure influences text memory • Surface form memory is compromised by segregating text reading into multiple events • Textbase memory is compromised by segregating text reading into multiple events • Textbase memory is compromised by segregating text reading into multiple events • Event model memory is enhanced by segregating text reading into multiple events The structure of events in which information is learned can have meaningful impacts on memory. According to the Event Horizon Model, the segregation of information into separate events can make memory retrieval either harder or easier, depending on the nature of the information and how it is accessed. The current study assessed memory for texts in the presence or absence of event segmentation. Our aim was to determine whether and how different types of memory are influenced when this information is learned as part of a single event or two events. Our results revealed that surface form and textbase memory were better when information was learned as part of a single event. However, the mental model level showed the opposite pattern. We suggest that this underlines the difference between memory and understanding, with different types of knowledge being impacted by environmental structure in very different ways.