Cognitive Science

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Studies using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) reveal that when people listen to facts and abstract information, only the language processing areas of the brain (Broca’s and Wernicke’s areas) are activated. However, when information is presented as a story, five times more areas of the brain light up, including:

• The sensory and motor cortices, which make us feel as if we are experiencing the story,
• The amygdala, responsible for emotional processing and memory consolidation,
• The hippocampus, which encodes and retrieves long-term memories.

A landmark study by Dr. Paul Zak (2014) found that when people engage with stories, their brains release oxytocin, a neurochemical linked to trust, empathy, and memory formation. This makes storytelling an emotionally charged experience, which dramatically enhances learning and retention.

Memory research shows that people retain 22-30% more information when it is structured as a story rather than as raw data or bullet points. In a well-cited study by John Medina, Ph.D., in Brain Rules (2008), he found that:

•  Research shows that narrative texts are easier to understand and remember compared to traditional expository formats, with some studies reporting increases of up to 47% in comprehension and 250% in recall ( Mar et al., 2021)
• Engaging narratives activate episodic memory, linking new information to personal experiences, making it easier to retain and recall.

Similarly, a Stanford University study (2016) found that stories improve decision-making and knowledge application because they create mental simulations that help learners integrate and apply concepts in real-world scenarios.

Our AI is designed to leverage these cognitive principles, transforming complex information into story-driven learning experiences that:
✅ Boost engagement by activating multiple brain regions,
✅ Enhance retention by structuring learning into memorable narratives,
✅ Make learning intuitive and enjoyable, reducing cognitive load,
✅ Improve real-world application through mental simulations and context-driven storytelling.

Storified’s AI is built on a foundation of narratology research, ensuring that every story it structures is optimised for cognitive load, emotional engagement, and contextual coherence. 

By leveraging cognitive narratology, which examines how the brain processes and remembers stories, our AI designs narratives that align with well-established frameworks of memory retention and comprehension. This includes structuring information using classic story arcs, such as Freytag’s Pyramid or the Hero’s Journey, to provide a familiar scaffolding that reduces cognitive effort while enhancing engagement. Key details are strategically placed at narrative peaks—such as moments of rising tension or resolution—where the brain is most likely to encode them into long-term memory. 

Our AI applies principles of schema theory, embedding new information within recognisable story structures to enhance accessibility and recall.

Emotional engagement is central to effective storytelling, and our AI ensures that narratives resonate on a deep psychological level. Drawing from narratology’s insights into character relatability and emotional pacing, it constructs stories that foster empathy, curiosity, and suspense—elements known to increase attention and retention. 

Contextual framing is another critical component; by tailoring stories to the audience’s prior knowledge and experiences, the AI ensures relevance and minimises cognitive overload. The more you use Storified, the more it learns about you and tailors your stories to fit within your cognitive framework.

Our AI integrates multimodal storytelling techniques—such as metaphor, analogy, and rich sensory descriptions—to activate multiple neural pathways, strengthening both comprehension and retention. 

Through this synthesis of narratology, cognitive science, and AI-driven personalisation, Storified crafts narratives that are not only compelling but also optimised for learning, decision-making, and lasting impact.

At Storified, we don’t just use storytelling because it’s effective—we use it because it’s fundamental to how humans have always understood the world. Our founder, Mark Wade, comes from Aboriginal Australian heritage, part of the oldest surviving culture on Earth, where storytelling and Songlines have been the foundation of knowledge, memory, and identity for over 65,000 years.

For millennia, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures have relied on oral storytelling and Songlines to pass down law, culture, science, and survival knowledge with remarkable accuracy. Unlike written records, which can be lost or misinterpreted, these narrative-based knowledge systems ensured that information remained intact across thousands of generations.

Indigenous storytelling and Songlines are sophisticated systems for encoding and transmitting complex knowledge.

Songlines function as navigational tools, embedding knowledge about geography, astronomy, and ecology in story and song. By following Songlines, Indigenous Australians could travel vast distances across the continent, using the land itself as a living memory system. Astronomical Songlines, for example, encode seasonal knowledge and tidal patterns, aligning with modern scientific discoveries.

Oral stories and Songlines ensured communities knew where to find waterholes, food sources, and safe travel routes, critical for survival in the Australian landscape. Dreaming stories about fire and land management reflect ecological principles that scientists now recognise as cultural burning, a practice now being adopted into contemporary fire management.

Through Songlines and oral histories, knowledge is preserved in ways that integrate law, community responsibility, and connection to Country, ensuring harmony and sustainability. These stories serve as cognitive maps, where every place, song, and movement encode layers of meaning that guide social behavior, environmental management, and cultural identity.

Western research confirms the power of narrative-based learning.  Bruner (1991) argues that narrative is the primary way humans construct and understand reality, making it more engaging, memorable, and meaningful than logical-scientific reasoning. Unlike formal logic, which seeks empirical verification, narrative fosters verisimilitude, organising experiences into coherent and culturally shared frameworks. Its effectiveness is evident in early cognitive development, social cohesion, and the way people naturally process information. Similarly, research into Indigenous Songlines aligns with the method of loci, a well-established memory technique used by the Ancient Greeks to map knowledge to physical locations, something Indigenous Australians have been doing for tens of thousands of years.