The allure of stories

02/22/23 • 80 min

1 Listener

Once upon a time there was a king and a bishop...

No, I'm not actually going to tell you a story right now. I just wanted you to notice something: As I started into that, your mind likely shifted into a different mode. You might have started mentally salivating as you anticipated a coming morsel of fiction. That’s because stories are special; they work a kind of magic on us. Humans everywhere—in every known society, starting from a very young age—seem to hunger for narratives. But why? What makes them so palatable and powerful? What do they do to us and for us?

This week I’m joined by two guests who research stories and the human mind. The first is Dr. Raymond Mar, Professor of Psychology at York University in Toronto. His work explores a bunch of different aspects of the psychology of stories, including the relationship between fiction reading and social cognition. My second guest is Dr. Jamie Tehrani, Professor of Anthropology at Durham University in the UK. His research examines the cultural evolution of stories, including questions about why certain stories spread and stick around (sometimes for millennia).

In this conversation, Raymond, Jamie, and I talk about why stories are so powerful. We discuss what makes something a story, and what makes something a good story. We talk about findings that reading fiction may boost our ability to understand other minds. We consider the origins and diversification of folktales by zooming in on one in particular—Little Red Riding Hood. We talk about why stories are easier to remember than essays, and we examine a few of the ingredients that make certain stories especially memorable. Finally, spoiler alert: we also do a bit of good old-fashioned story time.

This is an episode that has been on our wish list forever. Over the past few years there's been so much buzz about stories and storytelling—both in popular media and across different academic disciplines—we thought the topic deserved an extended treatment. And so here you have it: without further ado, my conversation with Jamie Tehrani and Raymond Mar. Enjoy!

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

5:00 – Many thinkers have alluded to the function of stories in expanding our experiences. As T.S. Eliot put it, “We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.”

11:30 – A brief popular discussion of the dramatic principle known as ‘Chekhov’s Gun.’

14:00 – See Lost in a Book, by Victor Nell. For the idea of “narrative transportation,” see the work of Richard Gerrig, especially the book Experiencing Narrative Worlds.

26:00 – In a recent paper, Dr. Mar has outlined the two routes through which reading fiction may boost social abilities. See also his recent review of work in this area.

29:00 – See Dr. Mar’s earlier review on the cognitive neuroscience of fiction reading. See also his lab’s recent review of published studies on the question of whether brief exposure to fiction can improve social ability.

34:00 – For a review of work using the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task, see here.

36:00 – On the relationship between the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task and oxytocin, see this influential study. See also this attempt to replicate those findings.

37:00 – The study by Robin Dunbar and colleague...

Once upon a time there was a king and a bishop...

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

5:00 – Many thinkers have alluded to the function of stories in expanding our experiences. As T.S. Eliot put it, “We read many books, because we cannot know enough people.”

11:30 – A brief popular discussion of the dramatic principle known as ‘Chekhov’s Gun.’

14:00 – See Lost in a Book, by Victor Nell. For the idea of “narrative transportation,” see the work of Richard Gerrig, especially the book Experiencing Narrative Worlds.

26:00 – In a recent paper, Dr. Mar has outlined the two routes through which reading fiction may boost social abilities. See also his recent review of work in this area.

34:00 – For a review of work using the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task, see here.

36:00 – On the relationship between the ‘Reading the Mind in the Eyes’ task and oxytocin, see this influential study. See also this attempt to replicate those findings.

37:00 – The study by Robin Dunbar and colleague...

Previous Episode

Traversing the fourth dimension

Not sure about you, but it seems like I spend most of my time in the future. We're told to live in the present, of course—and I try. But at any opportunity my mind just races ahead, like an eager puppy. I'm planning my next meal, dwelling on that looming deadline, imagining the possibilities that lie ahead. In one sense, all this time spent puttering around tomorrow-land is kind of regrettable. But in another sense it's really quite extraordinary. When we think ahead, when we cast our thoughts into the future, we're exercising an ability that some consider uniquely human.

My guest today is Dr. Adam Bulley. Adam is a psychologist and Postdoctoral Fellow affiliated with the University of Sydney and Harvard. Along with his co-authors Thomas Suddendorf & Jonathan Redshaw, Adam recently published a book titled, The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight.

In this conversation, Adam and I talk about two constructs central to the book—"mental time travel" and foresight. We discuss how these constructs relate to memory and to imagination. We dig into the question of whether our abilities to think ahead are really uniquely human. We review the archeological evidence for the emergence of foresight in our species’ evolution. And we also touch on—among other topics and tidbits— hoarding behavior in squirrels, tool use in chimpanzees, the Bischof-Köhler hypothesis, the control of fire, Incan quipus, hand axes, and longtermism.

Foresight is one of those especially tentacly topics. It connects to so many different other abilities and to so many questions about minds, culture, evolution. Both in the book and here in this conversation, Adam proves to be quite a skilled guide to all these connections.

There's also something else notable about Adam: he's an alum of the Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI). In fact, he was a participant in the first iteration of the program, back in 2018. So if you too aspire to do cool research, write cool books, and be interviewed on the coolest podcasts around, you might consider applying. Just note that review of applications begins soon: Feb 13. More info at: disi.org

Alright, friends, on to my chat with Adam Bulley. Enjoy!

A transcript of this episode is available here!

Notes and links

3:30 – A paper comparing performance on the “forked tube task” in human children and great apes.

6:30 – A now-classic article by Dr. Suddendorf and Michael Corballis on “mental time travel” and the evolution of foresight.

13:00 – An article by Dr. Suddendorf directly comparing memory and foresight. Another take on the same question.

22:00 – A recent paper by Johannes Mahr on the functions of episodic memory.

27:00 – A recent review article on the notion of “cognitive offloading.” The study by Adam and colleagues looking at the development of cognitive offloading in young children.

32:00 – For an earlier discussion of animal caching behavior, see our episode with Dr. Nicky Clayton.

35:00 – An examination of the Bischof–Köhler hypothesis in rhesus monkeys.

40:00 – A recent chapter by Adam and Dr. Redshaw reviewing the evidence for future thinking in animals.

41:00 – For a brief discussion of delayed gratification in cephalopods, see

Next Episode

The mighty T-Rex brain

When you think of the dinosaurs, you probably think of supersized lizards. At least I do. They were gargantuan, certainly, and maybe quite agile, but also a bit dim-witted. Maybe not markedly dim-witted, but definitely not the brightest. When dinosaurs terrify us it’s because of their giant jaws and their sheer size, not because they were especially clever or crafty. (Except for those velociraptors in Jurassic park, of course—they were terrifyingly wily.) But, in any case, who really knows? It’s all just fantasy and guesswork, right? I mean, how could we ever know how clever the dinosaurs actually were?

My guest today is Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel, a comparative neuroanatomist at Vanderbilt University. She studies the diversity and composition of brains across the biological world. For more than a decade now, Suzana and her colleagues have made the case that one of the most revealing things about a brain is not how big it is or how big it is relative to the body, but simply how many neurons it has. This basic variable, she argues, can tell us a lot about the cognitive capabilities of different species. Which means that if we were able, in some way, to estimate the number of neurons in the brain of some extinct creature, we could start to make inferences about its mind and its behaviors.

Here, Suzana and I discuss a recent study of hers in which she does exactly that. She was able to reconstruct the make-up of the brains of certain dinosaurs—such as the theropods, a group that included the venerable Tyrannosaurus Rex. But, before we get to the T-Rex, we first lay some important groundwork. We talk about how Suzana counts neurons, by making a kind of brain soup. We discuss how number of neurons proves to be a better predictor of complex cognition than does the much-discussed Encephalization Quotient (or EQ). We then describe how the brains of different groups of animals tend to obey predictable scaling laws. And with that groundwork laid, we dig into Suzana’s estimate that, in terms of number of neurons, a T-Rex's brain was comparable to a baboon's. Which would mean that it was significantly cleverer than we long thought, that it was probably quite behaviorally flexible and long-lived and may have even had culture. As you might imagine, this study caused quite a bit of a stir and so, finally, Suzana and I discuss some of the criticisms that have been leveled against it.

Alright folks, this is a super thought-provoking episode, whether or not you are—or ever were—a dinosaur geek. And even if you’re not quite ready to accept Suzana’s conclusions about the T-Rex, I think you’ll find that her work opens up a host of new questions and new directions. So, without further ado, on to my chat with Dr. Suzana Herculano-Houzel. Enjoy!

A transcript of this episode is available here.

Notes and links

6:00 – The paper in which Dr. Herculano-Houzel and her collaborator introduced the “brain soup” (aka isotropic fractionator) method.

10:00 – A paper by Dr. Herculano-Houzel about the glia/neuron ratio.

16:00 – The idea of the Encephalization Quotient (EQ) was first laid out by Harry Jerison in a 1973 book, Evolution of the Brain and Intelligence. A paper-length version of the theory is presented here.

23:00 – A recent review paper by Dr. Herculano-Houzel about number of neurons as a correlate of cognitive ability across species.

27:30 – Dr. Herculano-Houzel and colleagues have argued that the human brain is very much a “scaled up” version of the primate brain. See an empirical paper here and a review article here. See also Dr. Herculano-Houzel’s TED talk and book, The Human Advantage.

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