The Role of Affect in Narratives*

Affect states and reactions commonly occur in narratives. This paper discusses the importance of affect knowledge and processing in the context of BORIS, a computer program which reads and answers questions about narratives involving multiple sources of knowledge. There are several reasons why affects are important in a process model of narrative comprehension: For one thing, affects describe goal situations and signal the occurrence of expectation failures. Affective reactions also serve as an indication of the status of interpersonal relationships. Finally, affects influence the kinds of thematic structures which become instantiated in episodic memory.