A number of anthropologists have argued that religious concepts are minimally counterintuitive and that this gives them mnemic advantages. This paper addresses the question of why people have the memory architecture that results in such concepts being more memorable than other types of concepts by pointing out the benefits of a memory structure that leads to better recall for minimally counterintuitive concepts and by showing how such benefits emerge in the real-time processing of comprehending narratives such as folk tales. This model suggests that memorability is not an inherent property of a concept; rather it is a property of the concept, the context in which the concept is presented, and the background knowledge that the comprehendor possesses about the concept. The model predicts how memorability of a concept should change if the context containing the concept were changed. The paper also presents the results of experiments carried out to test these predictions.

Recent research has shown a memory advantage for minimally counterintuitive (MCI) concepts, over concepts that are either intuitive (INT) or maximally counterintuitive (MXCI), although the general result is heavily affected by context. Items from one such study were given to subjects who were asked to create novel stories using at least three concepts from a list containing all three types. Results indicated a preference for using MCI items (as in the recall studies), and further disclosed two styles of usage, an accommodative style and an assimilative style. The results extend recent memory research and suggest extensions to recent theories intended to explain the prevalence of counterintuitive religious concepts.For some years now, cognitive attempts to understand the pervasiveness and universality of religious belief have relied heavily upon "Minimal Counterintuitiveness" as an explanation for why certain concepts are easy to remember and transmit. According to this view, concepts that violate a limited number of the ontological expectations of folk biology, 1 The present paper is the outcome of a short-lived informal research group, the "I-75 Culture & Cognition Group." The authors are indebted to the staff of the Grounds for Thought coffee house, Bowling Green, Ohio, for providing a stimulating and comfortable environment during which these ideas were formulated and discussed.

Counterintuitive concepts have been identified as major aspects of religious belief, and have been used to explain the retention and transmission of such beliefs. To resolve some inconsistencies in the literature concerning counterintuitiveness, we conducted three experiments to study the effect of context on recall. Five types of items were used: intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, maximally counterintuitive, minimally counterintuitive with contradictory context, and intuitive with contradictory context. Items were presented with context or without context and participants were asked to recall them. Maximally counterintuitive concepts were found to have the poorest recall in both immediate and delayed recall conditions and regardless of the presence or absence of context. No significant differences were found in the recall rates of minimally counterintuitive concepts and intuitive concepts, although delayed recall affected minimally counterintuitive concepts less than intuitive concepts, suggesting the possibility of differential "fitness." Presence of contradictory context was found to be able to change minimally counterintuitive items into the functional equivalents of intuitive items (and vice versa). When relevant context was present, minimally counterintuitive concepts were recalled significantly better than intuitive concepts, which is consistent with the findings of Barrett & Nyhof (2001). For items presented as lists, intuitive items were recalled better, consistent with the findings of Norenzayan & Atran (2004b). Thus, context was the key element affecting recall and the discrepancy among prior studies (and the much earlier studies of Bartlett,

Much experimental evidence shows that minimally counterintuitive concepts, which violate one intuitive ontological expectation of domain-specifi c natural kinds, are remembered as well as or better than intuitive concepts with no violations of ontological expectations, and much better than maximally counterintuitive concepts with more than one violation of ontological violations (Barrett and Nyhoff , 2001;Boyer and Ramble, 2001;Atran and Norenzayan, 2004;Gonce et al., 2006). It is also well established that concepts rated as high in imagery, (e.g., apple) are recalled better than concepts that are low in imagery (e.g., justice; see Paivio, 1990). We conducted three studies to test whether imagery levels aff ected recall rates of intuitive, minimally counterintuitive, and maximally counterintuitive concepts. In study 1, we obtained imagery level ratings for 48 three-word items. In study 2, we used the ratings obtained in study 1 in a 2 × 3 recall task in which imagery (high vs. low) was manipulated along with counterintutiveness (intuitive vs. minimally counterintuitive vs. maximally counterintuitive). High imagery items were recalled signifi cantly better than low imagery items for intuitive and maximally counterintuitive items but not for minimally counterintuitive items. Study 3, replicated the fi ndings from study 2 in a 2 × 2 study using a larger number of intuitive and minimally counterintuitive items. In both studies, High imagery items were recalled signifi cantly better than low imagery items for intuitive but not for minimally counterintuitive items. Th us, minimally counterintuitive concepts appear insulated from imagery eff ects on recall.

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