An alternative account of the minimal counterintuitiveness effect

Upal, M. Afzal

doi:10.1016/j.cogsys.2009.08.003

Cited by 25 publications

(14 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…However, other studies suggest a more complex picture, showing that context might play a more important role in the memorability of individual concepts [30], [31], [32], [33], [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory for Expectation-Violating Concepts: The Effects of Agents and Cultural Familiarity

et al. 2014

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Previous research has shown that ideas which violate our expectations, such as schema-inconsistent concepts, enjoy privileged status in terms of memorability. In our study, memory for concepts that violate cultural (cultural schema-level) expectations (e.g., “illiterate teacher”, “wooden bottle”, or “thorny grass”) versus domain-level (ontological) expectations (e.g., “speaking cat”, “jumping maple”, or “melting teacher”) was examined. Concepts that violate cultural expectations, or counter-schematic, were remembered to a greater extent compared with concepts that violate ontological expectations and with intuitive concepts (e.g., “galloping pony”, “drying orchid”, or “convertible car”), in both immediate recall, and delayed recognition tests. Importantly, concepts related to agents showed a memory advantage over concepts not pertaining to agents, but this was true only for expectation-violating concepts. Our results imply that intuitive, everyday concepts are equally attractive and memorable regardless of the presence or absence of agents. However, concepts that violate our expectations (cultural-schema or domain-level) are more memorable when pertaining to agents (humans and animals) than to non-agents (plants or objects/artifacts). We conclude that due to their evolutionary salience, cultural ideas which combine expectancy violations and the involvement of an agent are especially memorable and thus have an enhanced probability of being successfully propagated.

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“…However, other studies suggest a more complex picture, showing that context might play a more important role in the memorability of individual concepts [30], [31], [32], [33], [34].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Memory for Expectation-Violating Concepts: The Effects of Agents and Cultural Familiarity

et al. 2014

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“…There are two potential explanations. One is a schema view of MCI content advanced by Upal (Upal 2010) and Purzycki (Purzycki 2010), rather than the original ontological category view expressed by others (Atran & Norenzayan 2004a;Boyer 2001;Boyer & Ramble 2001). If this is the case, we should expect the memory effect of MCI content to disappear and these concepts to become familiar.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…Other research has looked at the narrative context in which MCI content is presented (Gonce et al 2006;Upal 2010;Upal et al 2007). Their findings suggest that the memory bias for MCI content is only apparent when the content is not expected.…”

Section: Previous Research On the MCI Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When stories are prefaced with "In a dream" or presented as science fiction, the memory bias disappears. This is a potential problem for myths and fairytales, where MCI content should be expected (Gonce et al 2006), but it also adds support to a schema view of the MCI memory effect (Upal 2010). If expecting MCI content means that the content is no longer surprising and requiring of special attention, then the possibility that MCI content is driving the spread of these types of cultural information is called into question.…”

Section: Previous Research On the MCI Effectmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Memory and Belief in the Transmission of Counterintuitive Content

Willard

Henrich

Norenzayan

2016

Hum Nat

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Cognitive scientists have increasingly turned to cultural transmission to explain the widespread nature of religion. One key hypothesis focuses on memory, proposing that that minimally counterintuitive (MCI) content facilitates the transmission of supernatural beliefs. We propose two caveats to this hypothesis. (1) Memory effects decrease as MCI concepts become commonly used, and (2) people do not believe counterintuitive content readily; therefore additional mechanisms are required to get from memory to belief. In experiments 1-3 (n = 283), we examined the relationship between MCI, belief, and memory. We found that increased tendencies to anthropomorphize predicted poorer memory for anthropomorphic-MCI content. MCI content was found less believable than intuitive content, suggesting different mechanisms are required to explain belief. In experiment 4 (n = 70), we examined the non-content-based cultural learning mechanism of credibility-enhancing displays (CREDs) and found that it increased participants' belief in MCI content, suggesting this type of learning can better explain the transmission of belief.

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“…Modelo de codificação de conceitos e suas relações, conforme proposto por.O modelo proposto por Barrett sugere que a mínima contra-intuição corresponderia a uma violação nas expectativas, contudo, tal assertiva não foi empiricamente testada nesse estudo teórico. Outros estudos que utilizam rememoração como medida, apontam que a partir de duas violações, os conceitos seriam maximamente contra-intuitivos, tornando estes conceitos mais difíceis de serem lembrados do que aqueles que rompem apenas uma expectativa de domínio(Upal, 2010).Em um estudo que comparou jovens nativos de língua inglesa com chineses (n=101) em um teste de rememoração de itens intuitivos (elefante que esguicha água pela tromba) e minimamente contra-intuitivos (papagaio que fica invisível) expostos em um museu, nenhuma diferença entre idade e de língua foi verificada, apenas que itens que violavam a intuição ordinária eram mais bem rememorados do que outros itens(Greenway, Foley, Brianna, & Barrett, 2017). Essa parece ser uma possível evidência a favor da hipótese que os conceitos que violam alguma expectativa são melhor lembrados em diferentes populações e em diferentes idades.Este excerto sugere que Deus seria um conceito religioso com máxima contraintuição e que, de acordo com tal teoria, ele dificilmente seria uma boa representação, tanto pública quanto mental.…”

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O conceito Deus em crianças cristãs: o antropomorfismo e o uso das imagens religiosas

Ribeiro¹

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An alternative account of the minimal counterintuitiveness effect

Cited by 25 publications

References 23 publications

Memory for Expectation-Violating Concepts: The Effects of Agents and Cultural Familiarity

Memory for Expectation-Violating Concepts: The Effects of Agents and Cultural Familiarity

Memory and Belief in the Transmission of Counterintuitive Content

O conceito Deus em crianças cristãs: o antropomorfismo e o uso das imagens religiosas

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