Fiction and Other Minds: On the Effects of Fiction on Social Cognition. Evidence from Human Experimentation, Natural Language Processing, and Artificial Intelligence
Over the last 20 years, evidence from correlational studies and experiments has accumulated, which suggests that engagement with written fiction impacts on social cognition processes. In this presentation, I will review this research and the theoretical models that have been proposed to account for such effects, and present my own model on this line of inquiry, which distinguishes between types of fiction and extends to cultural products other than written fiction. I will summarize the extant correlational and experimental evidence stemming from my own research with human participants, as well as the most recent studies I have conducted using Natural Language Processing and Artificial Intelligence tools, which provide support for the theoretical account that I propose.
Emanuele Castano conducts research and writes about topics such as violent intergroup conflict and reconciliation, nationalism and international relations, and the existential motives of human behaviour. His latest work is on the impact of cultural products on social cognition and on democracy. He has published over 60 scientific articles in top tier scientific journals and he is the recipient of numerous research grants from various agencies and foundations, such as the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the European Commission. He is Professor of Psychology at the University of Florence, and a researcher at the Institute for Cognitive Science of the Italian National Research Council.
The seminar is convened by Professor Ben Morgan (ben.morgan@worc.ox.ac.uk) and Dr Naomi Rokotnitz (naomi.rokotnitz@worc.ox.ac.uk).
As always, the talk will be followed by drinks for all attendees.
About the Seminar Series: The Fiction and Other Minds seminar series showcases current research in the Cognitive Humanities by hosting scholars working at the interface between literary studies, visual and performance art, phenomenology, philosophy, and the cognitive sciences. The seminars explore how features investigated by the cognitive sciences can be tested and expanded across different cultural contexts, media, and artistic genres. In particular, we explore how literary texts often challenge and differentiate theoretical insights-especially through their attention to the culturally situated aspects of cognition-and how cognitively informed approaches to literature can deepen our understanding of the embodied and affective processes that underpin meaning-making, including literary reading. For more information, please see the Fiction and Other Minds research strand page.
