Narrative Cognition

A Narrative Cognition is a cognitive mode that understands and remembers the world through stories, plots, and temporally structured event sequences.

• AKA: Story-Based Thinking, Narrative Intelligence, Temporal Cognition.
• Context:
  • It can (typically) structure Everyday Reasoning by recalling personal events as stories with beginnings, middles, and ends.
  • It can (typically) enhance Memory Formation and learning processes through meaningful story structures engaging emotions and imagination.
  • It can (often) shape Identity Construction through life story development, integrating key events into coherent self-concepts over time.
  • It can (often) contrast with Paradigmatic Cognition, dealing in concrete scenarios and subjective experience versus abstract categories and principles.
  • ...
  • It can range from being an Individual Narrative Cognition to being a Cultural Narrative Cognition, depending on its collective scope.
  • It can range from being a Simple Narrative Cognition to being a Complex Narrative Cognition, depending on its structural sophistication.
  • It can range from being a Linear Narrative Cognition to being a Non-Linear Narrative Cognition, depending on its temporal organization.
  • It can range from being a Factual Narrative Cognition to being a Fictional Narrative Cognition, depending on its truth orientation.
  • It can range from being a Conscious Narrative Cognition to being an Automatic Narrative Cognition, depending on its awareness level.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Career Setback Narrative Framing, casting oneself as protagonist struggling before ultimate success for motivation.
  • Historical Teaching Through Story, using Galileo's narrative to convey Scientific Revolution concepts memorably.
  • Spontaneous Story Construction, where subjects arrange random events into plausible causal narratives.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Abstract Problem Solving, like algebra relying on logical manipulation without story elements.
  • Database Information Structures, presenting data without temporal or causal narrative connections.
  • Anti-Narrative Art Forms, intentionally breaking story coherence to challenge cognitive expectations.
• See: Meaning-Making Process, Mythic Narrative Framework, Life Purpose, Creative Expression Activity, Jerome Bruner, Narrative Identity, Story Grammar, Temporal Reasoning, Emergent Consciousness, Cultural Memory, Autobiographical Memory, Narrative Therapy, Oral Tradition, Storytelling.

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