haven briefing

8/3/2019 Haven Briefing

1/56

VOICE OF THE MIND

The Amazing Power ofStory

(And What It Means to You)A Summary of Recent Research

by

Kendall HavenAuthor/Master Storyteller

1155 Hart LaneFulton, CA 95439

[email protected]


2/56

Person #1: Wheres John?

Person #2: Well.I didnt want tosay anything. ButI saw a

green VWparked in front ofCarols.


3/56

Did anyone say that there is no

connection?

Did anyone say that it makes no

sense?

NO!

Human minds automatically assume a

connection and

assume it makes sense


4/56

Question:

Does the form and structureof narrative presentation

affect reader/viewer:

Understanding(comprehension),

Ability to create meaning, Retention (memory & recall)

From the scientific

information, concepts, and


5/56

Not only YES

But

HELL, YES!!!


6/56

The Central Thesis:

Research clearly shows thatSTORYarchitecture:

Provides superior retention (memory andrecall)

Provides Improved understanding Makes readers pay attention more Enhances the creation of meaning


7/56

DO STORIES WORK?1. Anecdotal Evidence from 100storytellers and

1,800 practitioners2. 300 Qualitative Studies3. 100 Quantitative Studies

AllALLcome to the same

conclusion.


8/56

The Problemswith STORY

1. Story misconceptions and

myths

2. No one has thought to

definestory from anyviewpoint more rational than

personal preference.


9/56

Story Myths & Misconceptions

Humans create understanding throughbinary opposites

Story versus non-story

Became linked with other binarysystems:

Fiction versus nonfictionTruth versus Lies

Real versus Unreal


10/56


Story = FictionStory = LiesStory = Untruth

The predominate use of stories addedmore myth.

Stories are for children.All stories look like childrens stories.


11/56


Stories are inappropriate for factual& scientific information, for nonfictionreporting.

People wont believe you if youhave to resort to telling stories.

Stories waste time by requiringneedless details.

Your arguments must be weak if

you have to resort to stories.


12/56

These myths and misconceptions

persistbecause we do not insist on a

concise and precise

definitionfor

STORY


13/56

The Goal of Defining STORY:Articulate a specific, concrete story

architecture that will improveReader/Viewer :

Attention to,

Development of meaning andunderstanding from,

Retention of,

Memory and recall ofPresented concepts, data,arguments and conclusions.


14/56

How wouldyoudefine story?

What language uniquely identifiesstory and separates story from

other narratives (article, essay,encyclopedia entry, report, memo,

directive, recipe, statement of fact,data set, etc.)?


15/56

What the Dictionary says:

Story: A narrative account of a

real or imagined event orevents.


16/56

HE WENT TO THE STORE.


17/56

The dictionary is wrong!

And we are left without an

understanding of what a storyis or how to use this mighty

architecture.


18/56

My Methodology:.Search for a confluence of research about the

human brainandmindfrom the fields of:Neural biology & linguisticsDevelopmental psychology

Computer neural net modelingInformation Science & knowledgemanagement

Cognitive Sciences

Educationto construct a more accurate and useful

definition of

STORY.


19/56

Brain Anatomy:

The average brain has: 100 billion brain cellsthat send out 500 trillion axons and dendrites. 4 weeks after conception, a human embryoproduces 500,000 neurons every minute. During the first two trimesters, neurons begin tostretch tentacles out to each other, establishingsynapses at the rate of 2 million a second!

3 months before birth, a babys brain has moreneurons than at any other time in its life.

Brain Monitoring Technology


20/56

Brain Monitoring Technology

CT (CAT--computerized axial tomography), MRI,fMRI (functional MRI), EEG, PET (positron

emission tomography) and OIS (optical imaging

of intrinsic signals)track

Real time electrical activityBlood consumption

Oxygen consumptionGlucose consumption

Metabolic activity Tiny shifts in brain shape and color

Shifts in the way light is reflected off of the

brain


21/56

Your brain is hardwired forstories.

Bruner (1998).Humans have an inherent readiness orpredisposition to organize experience into story form: intoviewpoints, characters, intentions, sequential plot structures,and the rest.

PINKER (2000).100,000 years of evolutionary preferencefor, and reliance on, STORYhas built into the human geneticcode instructions to wire the brain to think in story terms bybirth.

McAdams (1993).It is because of the narrative nature ofhuman minds at and before birth that we are impelled asadults to make sense of our lives in terms of narrative.


22/56

The Brains Story Predisposition Is Reinforced andStrengthened as the Brian Develops.

Kotulak (1999).Cells that fire together, wire together.

Applebee (1998). The child begins quite early to make use of theconventions of story to interpret their direct experiences of the world.Johnson (1993).Small children first encounter rational explanation in

story form.

Ambruster (1997). Research documents that children have more difficultycomprehending expository than story texts.

Nelson (2003). Infants and toddlers use narrative to explain and tocreate meaning because thats what parents and their culture do.

Kotulak (1999).Beyond the age of about 12, the brains physical,

neural mapshave been made.


23/56

SUMMARY:

The human brain is predisposed tothink in story terms. Thispredisposition is continuously

reinforced and strengthened as thebrain develops up through age 12.Adults arrive dependent on

interpreting events and other humansbehavior through a specific story

architecture.


24/56

The Mindis what

the brain does.


25/56

HUMAN MINDS:

Assume inputs make sense.Assume rational behavior.

Assume connections.Expect to work with partial information.Use existing neural maps and banks of

experience to identify andto fill inmissing information.

In order to create contextand

relevance.


26/56

Research confirms:

Without established contextand relevance,

the human mind isunlikely to remember new

information,and is

even less likely to ever recall

it.


27/56

EXAMPLES:

Wheres John?

Well.I didnt want to say anything. But I saw a green

VW parked in front of Carols.

Hi, Ken.

No! Im not Ken. Im not here.Im not here!


28/56

WhatMaps?

The story frameworks and the storymaps

you were born usingand developed through childhood.


29/56

Examples:

You see a woman slumped on a bench

crying, dress smeared with grass anddirt

and assume there is a logical reason for it, thatsomething happened to her (in the recent past) to make

her cry.You see a man chasing a dog.

and assume the man wants to catch the dog and that thedog has done something to deserve the mans pursuit.

You see a black rock against white snowand assume even lighting.

You see black and white dots on ascreen

and mentally assume its a 3-dimensional reality


30/56

Humans use mental maps (cheatsheets) to process incomplete sensoryinput and to combine our interpretation

of that input with existing banks ofexperience to make it make sense.

What mental maps, schema, systems,and cheat sheets do human adults

poses to interpret human behavior andtemporal input?

Story architecture!


31/56

whatInformation?

1. Character and enough informationabout the character to relate to thatcharacter

2. Intent(goal and motive)3. Actions4. Sensory details

#1 & 4 activate your experiential memorybanks#2 & 3 activate neural maps


32/56

MIND MECHANISMSHuman minds use a number of specific

mechanisms to accomplish this.

Metaphor/ParableCorrelation/Prior Knowledge/Pattern

matchingInference/Elaboration

Mapping/Schema

Cheat Sheets/FramingLanguage (& Grammar)

Relevance/Context/Empathy


33/56

Metaphor/Parable

Pinker (1997). Mental metaphors form Rules of Thumb.Events are explained as an agent exerting force and will toovercome resistance.

Lakoff and Johnson (2003).Argument is war. Argument is

a dance. Argument is a fight. Argument is a gift of energyand idea. The metaphor you choose defines how youcreate meaning and how you understand the world.

Example: AFFECTION IS WARMTH.Hes a warmperson.Shes cold.Shes like ice today. Built frominfancy experience of being held (affection) and

warmth of physical human body.


34/56

Correlation & Prior Knowledge

Bransford (1993). An example of the valueof prior knowledge to use for elaborationand the subsequent value of elaboration

to memory. Consider the following

sentences:John walked on the roof.Bill picked up the eggs.

Pete hid the ax.Jim flew the kite.

Frank built the boat.Harvey flipped the electric switch.

Ted wrote the play.

H b ?


35/56

How many can you remember?

Who build the boat? Who flew thekite? Etc.?

You understood the sentences,but have no context or relevance

for them and so werent able toremember them.


36/56

Now lets shift the character to invoke priorknowledge to aid in your understanding

(creating meaning) and memory.

Santa Clause walked on the roof.The Easter Bunny picked up the eggs.

George Washington hid the ax.Benjamin Franklin flew the kite.

Noah built the boat.

Thomas Edison flipped the electric switch.William Shakespeare wrote the play.


37/56

Another example:

Bransford (1993). Compare how you understand

and remember these two paragraphs:

Paragraph #1A thirsty ant went to the river. He was carried

away by the rush of the stream and was about todrown. A dove, sitting in a tree overhanging thewater, plucked a leaf. The leaf fell into the streamclose to the ant and the ant climbed onto it. The

ant floated safely to the bank. Shortly after, abirdcatcher came and laid a trap in the tree. Theant bit and stung him on the foot. In pain, thebirdcatcher threw down his trap. The noise made

the dove fly away.


38/56

Now compare with paragraph #2.

Pete argued that data gathered from a NASA

voyage to Venus called into question currenttheories about the formation of our solar system.Part of his talk emphasized the importance ofmass spectrometers. He then discussed the

isotopes of argon 36 and argon 38 and notedthat they were of higher density than expected.He also cited the high values of neon found inthe atmosphere. He has a paper that is alreadywritten, but he was aware of the need for furtherinvestigation as well.

Cooper (1997).Many studies have shown that

prior knowledge greatly influencescom rehension & memor .


39/56

Inference/Elaboration

Bransford (1998).If you know a lot about atopic, it is much easier to elaborate on, and tocreate meaning from, the information andremember what you have read or heard.

Bransford (1998).When a topic is unfamiliar toreaders/listeners, research shows that thenatural tendency is to use familiar storystructure with character goal, motive, and

struggles to elaborate on available informationand to provide mapping structures to bring priorknowledge and experience to bear on theinterpretation of current input.


40/56

Story Elements(Causality/Agent/Intent/Conflicts/Details/Actions)

1. Goal:Bransford (1993). He offers this paragraph:

Sally let loose a team of gophers. The plan backfired when a

dog chased them away. She then threw a party but theguests failed to bring their motorcycles. Furthermore, herstereo system was not loud enough. Sally spent the next daylooking for aPeeping Tombut was unable to find one in theYellow Pages. Obscene phone calls gave her some hope

until the number was changed. It was the installation of ablinking neon light across the street that finally did the trick.Sally framed the ad from the classified section and now has ithanging on her wall.

L dd l d i (i )


41/56

Lets add goal and motive (intent):Sally hates the woman who moved in nextdoor and wants to drive her out.

Now reread the paragraph and see if your mind doesntconjure images and sequences that make sense to you.

Sally let loose a team of gophers. The plan backfired when a

dog chased them away. She then threw a party but theguests failed to bring their motorcycles. Furthermore, herstereo system was not loud enough. Sally spent the next daylooking for aPeeping Tombut was unable to find one in theYellow Pages. Obscene phone calls gave her some hope

until the number was changed. It was the installation of ablinking neon light across the street that finally did the trick.Sally framed the ad from the classified section and now has ithanging on her wall.


42/56

Human minds automatically seek (or create) keystory elements.

Pinker (1997). Here is the gist of a movie:

A protagonist strives to attain a goal. Anantagonist interferes. Thanks to a helper, the

protagonist finally succeeds.

This movie.stars are three dots. One dot moves somedistance up an inclined line, back down, and up again,

almost reaching the top. Another abruptly collides with it, andit moves back down. A third gently touches it and moves

together with it to the top of the incline.

All observers see the first dot as tryingto reach the top, thesecond as hinderingit, and the third as helpingit to reach

its goal.


43/56

Another Example:Bransford (1993). Intent (goal & motive) create the

mental frame that creates meaning and relevance.Read once and try to remember:

The fat one bought the padlock.

The skinny one purchased the scissors.The toothless one plugged in the cord.The barefoot one climbed the steps.

The bald one cut out the coupon.The blind one closed the bag.

Do you remember which one purchased


44/56

Do you remember which one purchasedscissors? Which cut out a coupon? Whichone climbed steps? Etc. Etc.

Probably not.Now reread with the addition of a stated (or implied) goal.

The fat one bought the padlock to place on the refrigerator door.The skinny one purchased the scissors to use when taking in her

pants.

The toothless one plugged in the cord to the food blender.The barefoot one climbed the steps leading to the vat of grapes.The bald one cut out the coupon for a hair restoration clinic.The blind one closed the bag after feeding her seeing-eye dog.

Intent (goal & motive) creates context,meaning, relevance and memory.


45/56

Fact Is Made Relevant by Turning It into

STORY.

Turner (1996).Science writings imply (bury) most of the keystory elements. Make those explicit and information turns intoSTORY!

EXAMPLE:Mother pours milk into a glass. (an event)Unstated: goal/motive/resolution/obstacles

Make those explicit: Mother has been crippled by astroke. Left side paralyzed. Fights to regain use of left hand

and arm. Obstacles: grip, gravity, slips, spills, missing theglass, overfilling the glass, embarrassment, etc. This is the firsttime she has tried a complex action with her left hand. She isdetermined to pour the milk to prove that she can....

Now its aSTORY!


46/56

A summary of how the mind

works.Human minds work with narrative input through simple

sequential questions:

1. Should I pay attention?2. How can I interpret and understand what I

received?

3. What of my experience and prior knowledge

applies here?4. So, what does this mean to me?

(Can I place it within a context and create

relevance?)

5. File to memory.


47/56

The Elements of Story

From this combined researchwe can identify eight specific

elements that define

successful stories.


48/56


49/56

THE EIGHT ESSENTIAL ELEMENTSOf Every Story/Narrative

1. Who is the MAIN CHARACTER?2. What CHARACTER TRAITS make them interestingand relevant?3. What do the character need to do or get(GOAL)?

4. Why is that goal important (MOTIVE)?5. What CONFLICTS/PROBLEMS block the character?6. How do they create RISK & DANGER?7. What does the character do (STRUGGLES) to reach

the goal?8. What sensory DETAILS will make the story seemReal?


50/56

A BETTER DEFINITION.What we reallymean by the word

STORY:A character-based narrative account

of a characters struggles to

overcome obstacles and reach adefined and important goal

presented in sufficient detail to make

the story real, vivid, and memorable.

Short Version: Characters at war.

Wh t th d fi iti


51/56

What the definition means:

A word on FICTION and NONFICTION.

We associate NONFICTION with Reality,Truth, Facts

FICTIONwith False, Made-Up, Lies, Stories

BUT:1. Mental processes that create MEANING andUNDERSTANDING fictionalize.

2. Mental acts of INTERPRETING and

REMEMBERING fictionalize.3. The writing process automatically fictionalizes.


52/56

The REAL differencebetween Fiction and Nonfiction:

FictionPresents Fiction (Stories)

About EventsThat Havent Happened Yet.

NonfictionPresent Fictionalized StoriesAbout Events That Have.


53/56

APPLYING THE DEFINITION

toSCIENCE OUTREACH WRITING

Goal: adapt story elements andarchitecture to increase

attention, retention, memory,meaning, understanding,

accuracy, and recall.


54/56

Its information you want to communicate.

But its story that creates context andrelevance for that information and makesit memorable.

Its accomplishment you want tocommunicate.

But its obstacles and struggle that

create the story.

Its the concepts you want to present.

But stories are always about character.

Story Concept: Create


55/56

Story Concept: Create

1. A Characterwith whom the audience canrelate (peer, decision maker, customer, etc.)

2. A Goalthat you want the audience to adopt(themes and teaching points)

3. A Dilemmathe concept you want to promote(conflictinternal or external or struggle)

Examples: Burger King Girl, Denning Story

APPLYING THE DEFINITION TO SCIENTIFIC OUTREACH


56/56

APPLYING THE DEFINITION TO SCIENTIFIC OUTREACHWRITING

Family storiesthe science problem Story Architecturethe science outreach answer Put a face on it (left implicit in family stories)

Create context, empathy, and relevance throughcharacter

Provide explicit goal & motive (left implicit in familystories)

Help reader create meaning and understandingwriteto their existing mental maps, cheat sheets, and

knowledge base Sensory details of scenes, events, human

reaction/interaction activate reader mental maps andexperiential banks to create relevance, context, and

empathy

haven briefing

Documents