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

Abstract

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.

Negative expectations influence behavioral and ERP responses in the subsequent recognition of expectancy‐incongruent neutral events

“…However, it is still unknown what effects of expectancy incongruence would be at later time points in encoding‐related LPP. In terms of stimulus retrieval, according to the abovementioned distinctiveness theory and related empirical studies (e.g., Chang & Sanfey, ; Kroneisen & Bell, ; Lin, Xiang, et al, ; Porubanova et al, ; Schmidt, ), we predict that, in the present study, expectancy incongruence might alter the distinctiveness of the pictures, particularly that of neutral pictures, during the encoding phase and thus would enhance recognition performance (e.g., the sensitivity index d′ ) and increase P2 amplitude but decrease recognition‐related LPP amplitude for neutral pictures. In contrast to neutral pictures, however, negative pictures are distinctive regardless of expectancy incongruence.…”

“…For instance, the distinctiveness theory indicates that distinctiveness enhances stimulus retrieval, and expectancy incongruence is a phenomenon of distinctiveness (Schmidt, ). Consistently, in a behavioral study by Porubanova and colleagues (), participants were asked to memorize presentations of everyday concepts that were incongruent or congruent with expectations (e.g., a stone mirror and a convertible car, respectively) and were subsequently prompted to recall all of these concepts. The results showed that expectancy incongruent concepts were more memorable than congruent concepts.…”

“…More importantly, while previous studies have primitively shown that expectancy incongruence of emotional stimuli influences stimulus encoding, little is known about the effect of expectancy incongruence in later stages of memory, such as retrieval. Theories and empirical studies have implied that expectancy incongruence influences stimulus retrieval, when expectancy incongruence is not associated with emotion processing (e.g., Chang & Sanfey, ; Kroneisen & Bell, ; Porubanova, Shaw, McKay, & Xygalatas, ; Schmidt, ). For instance, the distinctiveness theory indicates that distinctiveness enhances stimulus retrieval, and expectancy incongruence is a phenomenon of distinctiveness (Schmidt, ).…”

Asclepius’ Myths and Healing Narratives: Counter-Intuitive Concepts and Cultural Expectations

“…As has been suggested by Boyer (2001) and Porubanova and her colleagues (Porubanova-Norquist, Shaw and Xygalatas, 2013;Porubanova-Norquist et al, 2014), agents who violate either intuitive ontology or expectations induced through cultural conditioning become particularly memorable as figures inspiring religious cults and gaining the attention of supplicants. However, the mythical sagas and the healing narratives concerning Asclepius focus less on his figure as a divine agent than on his activity and achievements.…”

Creencias, Rituales y Memoria. Una introducción a la Ciencia Cognitiva de la Religión

“…Este tipo de sesgos arraigarían la adherencia a creencias dentro de un contexto social determinado, donde la familia, la comunidad y el aprendizaje cultural juegan un papel fundamental en el compromiso del individuo con un sistema de creencias. Por último, pero no menos importante, Porubanova, Shaw, McKay & Xygalatas (2014) demuestran experimentalmente como las ideas que producen una violación de expectativas culturales parecen ser más fáciles de recordar que las relacionadas con principios ontológicos naturales, cuestión que trae consigo muchas relecturas acerca de la importancia de la contraintuitividad en la propagación de las ideas religiosas.…”