Journal ArticleDOI
Beyond the Frame: Cognitive Science, Common Sense and Fiction
TLDR
The authors argue that certain types of modernist and post-modernist self-reflexive fiction paradoxically provoke focused schema-consis tent reading and foreground stereotype frames to alleviate the cognitive load that schema-inconsistent information presents to the reader.Abstract:
According to popular definition, the subject matter of fiction is invention, whereas nonfiction relies on factual ("real-world") data. Recent developments in cognitive narratology (Ryan, Fludernik, Jahn, Herman) considerably reduce the value of sharp distinction between fiction and nonfiction, however. The concepts of "frame", "schema" and "script" provide a link between the "real-life" and "fictional" experience. As Pierre Ouellet observes, the "real-life" knowledge contains a signifi cant number of propositions that are taken for granted and are employed by the com munity or individuals either intuitively (as rules of thumb) or rationally as "shortcuts" of experience; these often do not withstand critical scrutiny and may qualify as "natural fictions" based solely on the immediacy and fullness of belief. From this perspective, fiction is continuous with accepted opinions, stereotypes and other components of folk knowledge (i.e. beliefs used as "default knowledge") that people rely on in everyday life. My hypothesis is that certain types of modernist and postmodernist self-reflexive fiction paradoxically provoke focused schema-consis tent reading and foreground stereotype frames to alleviate the cognitive load that schema-inconsistent information presents to the reader. In this case naturalizing reading and focusing on the commonsense frames as secure and reliable as com pared with the strange or indeterminate data beyond the frame is provocatively sup ported by the text itself; however, if sustained, it leads to impoverished interpretation of the events and diminishes the cognitive effect of inconsistent data.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
"Listen to my tale": Multilevel Structure, Narrative Sense Making, and the Inassimilable in Mary Shelley's Frankenstein
The Narrative Role of Films in Four Contemporary Novels
TL;DR: In this article, the authors explore the narrative function of cinema in twenty-first century fiction, and demonstrate that the literary use of cinema greatly affects narration and the reading experience: it disturbs the conventional narrative hierarchy and the subordination between the primary level and the embedded one.
Journal ArticleDOI
Surviving the Storm: Trauma and Recovery in Children's Books about Natural Disasters
Abstract: This article examines literature for children and young adults that depicts the devastation of natural disasters, particularly the 2005 hurricane Katrina which hit the eastern United States and the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami. Especially for audiences of young children, representations of death and massive destruction can be a controversial enterprise. Focusing on three types of narratives—animal picture books, eye witness accounts, and young adult fiction—this study explores how children's and young adult literature navigates such difficult issues by retelling stories of large-scale disasters as scenarios of trauma and recovery.
Journal ArticleDOI
Notes on narrative, cognition, and cultural evolution
Marina Grishakova,Siim Sorokin +1 more
TL;DR: This paper developed a broad, non-representational perspective on narrative, necessary to account for the narrative "ubiquity" hypothesis, which considers narrativity as a feature of intelligent behaviour and as a formative principle of symbolic representation.
References
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Book
Discourse and Literature: The Interplay of Form and Mind
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the theory of literary discourse: schema refreshment and cognitive change and the application of the theory: discourse deviation in three literary texts.
Journal ArticleDOI
Stereotypes help people connect with others in the community: A situated functional analysis of the stereotype consistency bias in communication
Anna E. Clark,Yoshihisa Kashima +1 more
TL;DR: A situated functional model of this stereotype consistency bias showed that stereotype-consistent information is perceived as more socially connective but less informative than inconsistent information, and when the stereotype is perceived to be highly shared in the community, more stereotype- Considered information is communicated due to its greater social connectivity function.