The Evolution of Narrative Cognition

This paper explores the evolutionary roots of narrative cognition. Definitions of narrative vary widely between authors and disciplines, the first section reviews various definitions and establishes some basic criteria for narrative as it is used in this paper. The next section examines the cognitive representation of narrative, first reviewing existing evidence for narrative as an innate human trait, then exploring both linguistic and non-linguistic theories of narrative cognition. The third section reviews arguments for why and how narrative may have evolved, examining evolutionary processes, possible selection pressures, and potential evolutionary paths. The final section discusses how various models of narrative cognition work or conflict with evolutionary theories. The most probable models of narrative cognition posit that narrative relies on a combination of multiple traits that evolved in gradual, evolutionarily beneficial steps. It is unlikely that narrative exists as a unified, domain-specific cognitive module, it is more likely that narrative depends on many smaller cognitive modules working in tandem