Context-based model of minimal counterintuitiveness

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The context-based model of the counterintuitiveness effect [1] is a cognitive model of The Minimal Counterintuitiveness Effect (or MCI-effect for short) i.e., the finding by many cognitive scientists of religion that minimally counterintuitive concepts are more memorable for people than intuitive and maximally counterintuitive concepts [2] [3]

The context-based model emphasizes the role played by the context in which a concept appears in making it counterintuitive. This is in contrast to the traditional (also called content-based) accounts of the MCI-effect which underscore the role played by context. [4] [5] Barrett & Nyhoff (2001) claim that this is necessary in order to explain cross-cultural success of religious concepts.

Although research on schemas and scripts suggests the possibility that incongruent concepts may be better remembered thus contributing to their transmission, these conceptual structures are culturally variable to a large extent and will not provide an explanation for cross-culturally prevalent classes of concepts. [6]

The context-based model was first proposed by cognitive scientist Afzal Upal in 2005 [7] and has been subsequently elaborated in a number of publications. [8] [9] According to the context-based model, counterintuitiveness of a concept depends on the mental knowledge activated in the mind of a reader at the time at which the reader processes the concept in question. Since this mental knowledge clearly varies from person to person, a concept that is counterintuitive to one person may not be so for another person. Furthermore, a concept may be counterintuitive to a person at one time but not at another time.

In fact the context-based model predicts that since people learn, their conceptual representations change over time. When people encounter a minimally counterintuitive concept for the first time, they are forced to make sense out of it (Upal (2005) labelled it as the postdiction process). The postdiction process results in the formation of new knowledge structures and in strengthening of existing knowledge structures. Because of these new knowledge structures, when the same concept is encountered again, it does not seem as counterintuitive as it did in the past. The context-based model predicts that over time the counterintuitive concepts come to lose their very counterintuitiveness (and the memory advantages it confers upon the concept).

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Cognitive anthropologist Pascal Boyer argued that minimally counterintuitive concepts (MCI) i.e., concepts that violate a few ontological expectations of a category such as the category of an agent, are more memorable than intuitive and maximally counterintuitive (MXCI) concepts. A number of experimental psychology studies have found support for Boyer's hypothesis. Upal labelled this as the minimal counterintuitiveness effect or the MCI-effect.

Postdictable concepts are those concepts that can be justified after having been seen. Upal labeled a counterintuitive concept as postdictable if the postdiction process is successful making sense of the concept i.e., the reader is successfully able to construct a justification given the reader's background knowledge, level of motivation and interest, and the cognitive resources available to the reader. According to the context-based model of minimal counterintuiveness, postdictable counterintuitive concepts are minimally counterintuitive and are remembered well. Those counterintuitive concepts that are not postdictable in a given context are considered to be maximally counterintuitive and are not remembered well by people. Thus the concept of a flying elephant is postdictable when set up in the context of Operation Dumbo Drop because it can be justified in that context. The concept of a "square triangle that only exists on Wednesdays and eats cats" however does not make any sense and is therefore not postdictable.

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Cognitive science of new religious movements is the study of new religious movements from the perspective of cognitive science. The field employs methods and theories from a variety of disciplines, including cognitive science of religion, sociology of religion, scientific study of religion, anthropology, and artificial life. Scholars in the field seek to explain the origin and evolution of new religious movements in terms of ordinary universal cognitive processes.

References

  1. ↑ Upal, M. A. (2010). "An Alternative View of the Minimal Counterintuitiveness Effect", Journal of Cognitive Systems Research, 11(2), 194-203.
  2. ↑ Boyer, Pascal. The Naturalness of Religious Ideas. University of California Press, 1994.
  3. ↑ Boyer, P., & Ramble, C. (2001). "Cognitive templates for religious concepts". Cognitive Science, 25, 535–564.
  4. ↑ Barrett, J. L., & Nyhof, M. (2001). "Spreading non-natural concepts: the role of intuitive conceptual structures in memory and transmission of cultural materials". Journal of Cognition and Culture, 1, 69–100.
  5. ↑ Barrett, J. L. (2008) Coding and Quantifying Counterintuitiveness in religious concepts: Theoretical and methodological reflections. Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 20,308-338.
  6. ↑ Barrett, J. L., & Nyhof, M. (2001). "Spreading non-natural concepts: the role of intuitive conceptual structures in memory and transmission of cultural materials". Journal of Cognition and Culture, 1, 69–100.
  7. ↑ Upal, M. A. (2005). Role of context in memorability of intuitive and counterintuitive concepts. In B. Bara, L. Barsalou, & M. Bucciarelli (Eds.). Proceedings of the 27th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2224–2229). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
  8. ↑ M. A. Upal, L. Gonce, R. Tweney, and J. Slone (2007) Contextualizing counterintuitiveness: How context affects comprehension and memorability of counterintuitive concepts, Cognitive Science, 31(3), 415-439.
  9. ↑ Upal, M. A. (2011) From Individual to Social Counterintuitiveness: How layers of innovation weave together to form tapestries of human cultures, Mind and Society, 10(1), 79-96.
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