Music, Movies and abandoned landscapes have this in common they all have our attention and they all tell a story. Now what’s really interesting that it’s not only music and movies that tells a story its games, other people, silence noise we think, drink and dream in a story form.
Explanations on the captivity of the ancient art of
storytelling are massive and as old and ancient as the art itself, in this
article however the target is the behavioral and cognitive aspect of
storytelling and a unique feature that story telling in the gaming world.
First the cognitive aspect in his book “The Divided Brain and the Search for Meaning” Iain McGilchrist talks about a well known theory that our brain is divided into two hemispheres the left one is responsible for things like logic, calculating & language mainly very practical side of the thinking process.
The right hemisphere part of the human brain however is more of a dreamy side it has control over processes like imagining, intuition & tune of songs. Dr.Iain McGilchrist takes these findings further he argues that cultures can be considered in the same manners specific cultures could be practical pragmatic result oriented and work driven that is loses its left brains.
Other cultures could rely more on the right hemisphere of the brain they are interested more in spirituality, colors, music and meditation. This is not another clash of cultures or in this case more appropriate to say clash of brains yet it is a trial aiming to view different aspects and patterns with respect to evolutionary behavior.
Within the realms of the ancient art of story telling the human mind is put into action both sides of brain work together there is a sequence for the story that engages the logical and analytical skills and there is an environment and a world where the story is taking place that engages the imaginative skills.
Other than the content of the story telling there is as well the context of storytelling it’s almost a universal art the is used in the most profound personal and private relations, parents tell their children stories before they sleep or stories of themselves when they were young.
In schools their friends tell them stories about their own parents and in churches, temples or mosques there is nothing but stories told by religious figures.
So the context of storytelling as well is important as it holds factors and attachments like truth, caring, lessons to be learned and of course these factors have sentimental values and nostalgic attachments.
One of the unique features of gaming storytelling is the counterfactuals, thinking about what might have been, about alternatives to our own pasts, is central to human thinking and emotion. Such thoughts are called counterfactual thoughts.
In their article “The Functional Theory of Counterfactual Thinking” Kai Epstude & Neal J. Roese said
this about the this mental phenomena
“Counterfactual thinking seems to be a common feature of people’s conscious mental landscape The capacity to entertain counterfactual possibilities emerges early in life (typically by age 2) and seems to be evident as soon as children have mastered the lexical skills to express subjunctive ideas of “if only” Moreover, counterfactual reasoning is common across nations and cultures even if the particular focus of those counterfactuals reflects the different priorities inherent in different cultures. Counterfactual thinking may well be an essential property of intelligence itself.”
In gaming there is a world where magic rules the world there is another game that Rasputin didn’t die, there is a world where robots did take over the trick is that’s the gamer is in the heart of the action. Gaming satisfies the brain.
Written by :Fouad Ahmed
Twitter:@fouad_khafaga
Hotmail: Fouad_khafaga@hotmail.co.uk
Looks very interesting. Creating makes happiness, and I have nearly finished a book. Just waiting on a photograph from archives. That is a great sense of accomplishment. Now I just need to publish.
ReplyDeleteWhat an accomplishment , Great job, whats the book about ?
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