Read the given story and classify it as 'imagined', 'recalled', or 'retold'. If a story is imagined, the person who wrote the story is making it up, pretending they experienced it. If a story is recalled, the person who wrote the story really experienced it and is recalling it from memory. If a story is retold, it is a real memory like the 'recalled' stories, but written down much later after previously writing a 'recalled' story about the same events. So, recalled stories and retold stories will be fairly similar, in that they both were real experiences for the writer. Imagined stories have a more linear flow and contain more commonsense knowledge, whereas recalled stories are less connected and contain more specific concrete events. Additionally, higher levels of self reference are found in imagined stories. Between recalled and retold stories, retold stories flow significantly more linearly than recalled stories, and retold stories are significantly higher in scores for cognitive processes and positive tone.

[Q]: This vacation was quite an experience! It was the first time that my husband and I had taken our little ones on a long trip. We only went about four hours from home, but it felt like we were a world away! The car ride went more smoothly than I thought it would with a baby in the car. Granted, we did leave in the early hours of the morning, so the kids slept for a little while. We stayed in a community of rental homes in a very nice neighborhood. The house was beautiful and it met all of our needs for the trip. There was also a huge lagoon style pool on the property that we made use of during our stay. The kids had a blast swimming in it. I think the most exciting part of our trip was seeing our little girl (3) at the beach for the first time. She was just in awe of everything. She kept running down to the water and running back across the sand, and her excitement was just infectious. It means a lot to me that we are able to take our kids to do things like this and have fun experiences, because I know a lot of people are not so lucky. We are not rich by any means, but as long as we can give our kids love and a taste of life, I am happy. It filled my heart to see her so enjoying herself. On the whole, it was a great trip full of fun experiences. It was hard to deal with the toddlers, but all of the frustrations were worth it.
[A]: retold


[Q]: The past two months have seemed like a blur, but in the past two weeks, everything seemed to go in slow motion. Leading up to our graduation, every day was jam packed with things to do. We were cramming for exams, touching up final papers, analyzing data for research projects. And that was just for school. We also had to find time to apply for jobs, so many jobs. And of course we couldn’t neglect each other. We went out every weekend. We were finally all 21 and didn’t have to worry about fake ids, so we really took advantage of the full range of bar selections across the city. We felt like we were finally growing up and finally ready to enter the real world. Graduation day two weeks ago was the culmination of all of that. We partied like we never had before, and we finally didn’t have to stress about waking on time the next day battling a hangover to get to class. After that, though, the dorms closed. We all had to leave. I went back to my family’s house for a while, and the whole world seemed to stop. As adult as I felt the past few months, I was whisked back to childhood by my parents, controlling my every move once again. I still didn’t have a job, but felt like I was running out of places to apply. My friends from high school mostly weren’t around, either, so days passed so slowly. I have to admit, I enjoyed it at first, finally free of the deadlines, but without the friends and life I’d built in college, all the fun things I wished I could do with my free time just weren’t around to enjoy anymore. This past week has been so hard. I hardly bothered to leave my room much less the house. But you know what, just when I felt like I needed to resign to this being my life, days of reminiscing for college, I got a call! Last night, I got an interview for a job at my top choice of firms. I’m so excited, and it’s really brought my life back into focus. Shopping tomorrow, interview prepping on Wednesday, and if all goes well, my first real job next month!
[A]: imagined


[Q]: Dear Diary,I've been thinking about the incident a lot. Probably too much. What, me? Overthinking? No way. But this time, I blame my subconscious brain. I had a dream about her last night. We met up and it was... nice. Polite. I mean, I didn't slap her, so already I'd say that's a pleasant dream. I'm kidding, but only sort of. It's actually the first time I dreamed of her in the last four months, since we stopped speaking. I've been rolling the incident around in my head over and over again, trying to think how it could have gone differently. I talked to mom after it happened and she was kind but firm, which sounds about right, eh? Mostly, she said I shouldn't have let the issue get so hot before dealing with it and that's why it exploded. Exploded, ha. That's an understatement. My bae since Kindergarden and now we never talk. It makes me so flipping sad sometimes, even though she was way out of line. Oh, I hear my mother's voice in my head again reminding me that I was out of line too. That's the terrible power of knowing everything about someone else - you have the knowledge and capacity to use that power to hurt them. I was wrong. She was wrong. And we're both so darn prideful. Should I reach out?
[A]:
imagined


