The Power of Stories: The Impact of Narrative Form, Structure and Complexity in Modern Society Symposium

About

The symposium unites scholars and experts from diverse disciplines, including psychology, film scholarship, media psychology, literary studies, and communication science, to foster a dynamic and multifaceted dialogue. This symposium aims to explore the determinants of narrative form and structure, the experiences they evoke, and the profound effects they have on individuals and societies. By adopting an interdisciplinary perspective, the event seeks to uncover how different academic approaches can illuminate the cognitive, emotional, and social dimensions of storytelling. Topics will include the complexity of narratives, their ability to generate empathy, their real-life implications, and their impact on audience understanding and engagement across various media. This collaborative endeavor aspires to deepen our appreciation of narratives as a fundamental force shaping modern society.

Venue and date

The symposium will take place at VU Amsterdam between 13-14 March, 2025, at the following location:

Grand Café LIVING Amsterdam (De Boelelaan 1111G, 1081 HV Amsterdam)

Registration

The event is open to the public and free of charge. If you want to participate, please indicate your attendance via this form until the 3rd of March.

Program

13th March, Thursday
14th March, Friday

Abstracts

Joe Magliano: The Cognitive Affordances of Text and Images: Shaping Mental Models in Narratives.

Co-authors: Heather Ness-Maddox, Shu Hu, Puren Öncel, Lingfei Luan, & Laura Allen

Narratives are conveyed in language (oral, text) and visually (film, sequential picture stories). How does the medium in which we experience a narrative affect our comprehension of it? There is a case to be made that there are common processes that operate across media. However, different media require distinct skills and may have unique affordances that have important implications for comprehension. As such, the question posed above is fundamental to cognitive science, but one that requires more attention than it has received thus far in the literature. In this presentation, I will present two studies that we can conduced to explore the affordances of media in supporting different aspects of comprehension. Participants thought aloud while reading graphic or text-based versions of stories. Computational analyses of the think aloud responses showed differences across the media in terms of situational information that is mentioned in the responses and coherence building.

Lene Heiselberg: Affective Storytelling for News Videos: Introducing and Testing Batman Affective Structure in the Age of Streaming.

This study explores how the “Batman Affective Structure” (BAS), a novel narrative structure, can address the challenges television broadcasters face in retaining audiences amid the rise of streaming services and the decline of traditional linear television. BAS adapts news video narration by emphasizing emotional engagement at the beginning and end. The study tested BAS against traditional broadcast narrative structures, using electrodermal activity (EDA) and surveys to assess its impact. Results revealed that BAS outperformed broadcast TV narration in eliciting arousal and attention, particularly among streaming-oriented audiences with high media consumption. However, its effectiveness varied based on video content and audience type, with entertainment-focused users responding most favorably. These findings highlight the potential of emotion-driven news video narration to bridge the gap between broadcast and streaming formats, offering broadcasters a strategy to compete in an increasingly on-demand, high-choice media environment.

Andras Balint Kovacs: Causality, Incoherence and Complexity in narratives.

How to detect high level incoherence in narratives by machine learning (ML)? This is a report of the state of the research the final goal of which is to develop an algorithm that can detect EEG signatures of “events” as cognitive markers of high information processing load. Two linear narratives were reedited so that the shots that coherently followed each other were shuffled. Each cut in the original was annotated a) for its role in creating the coherence of the narrative; b) for the type of continuity; c) presence of human figures and/or faces. Different statistical procedures and ML methods were used to see which one discriminates the best between coherent and incoherent narratives and what role the annotations play in the discrimination process. Results show a maximum of 97.1% accuracy in discrimination consistently based on N2 and P3 components. Results also show that content annotation of shots improves discrimination performance, allowing for further investigating which type of content elicits which type of response. Results also contradict some earlier reports on what types of activations play a role in discriminating between coherent and incoherent video clips. Consequences of these results on theory of narrative causality and processing coherence/incoherence in narratives will be discussed.

Frank Hakemulder: How Literariness Emerges: Finding an Antidote to Superficiality.

This talk explores the interplay between text and reader in shaping literariness—the defining quality of literature. Rather than residing solely in the text or the reader’s perception, literariness emerges through engagement. Mere exposure is insufficient; it is the nature of interaction that brings this quality to life. Understanding this dynamic deepens our grasp of complexity in literature (and other arts) and its potential role in enriching our lives. Literariness exemplifies deep reading, requiring sustained attention, absorption of complex ideas, and openness to others’ inner worlds. It enhances connections between text and personal experience while revealing how stylistic choices shape meaning. In an era of digital distractions (by the way, where is your smartphone?), deep engagement with literature faces increasing challenges. Finding ways to make such experiences enriching and rewarding is essential to sustaining motivation for deep reading. I will propose strategies to help readers recognize literariness as a powerful mode of meaning-making. By highlighting its ability to generate empathy, build community, and provide a reflective space for navigating life’s complexities, literature can be framed as a transformative force—one that not only enhances individual engagement but also enriches collective understanding in an increasingly mediated world.

Gaya Yonah: The Complexity Effect: An Exploratory Study on How Complex Narrative Structures Relate to Audience Engagement.

This research explores how audiences engage with complex narratives in film and television, particularly those featuring nonlinear chronology and disrupted causality. While previous studies have primarily focused on comprehension ease in linear storytelling, this study shifts the focus to the cognitive and emotional dimensions of engaging with narrational complexity. Drawing from media psychology and cognitive film theory, the project developed theory-driven categories of complex narrative experiences. Through in-depth semi-structured interviews with fans of complex movies and TV shows, using open-ended questions, the study seeks to uncover the psychological and aesthetic processes involved in processing intricate story structures. These insights are intended to contribute to the development of a narrational complexity engagement scale, offering a potential framework for understanding how narrational complexity influences audience perception and emotional investment—advancing interdisciplinary discourse on the power of storytelling in modern society.

Ed Tan (UvA, The Netherlands): Why is mise-en-scène difficult to analyse?

Cynthia Cabañas: Viewer Engagement with Narrative Complexity: A Cognitive-Affective Framework.

Previous narrative engagement theories have predominantly focused on viewers’ surface-level subjective experiences, such as immersion and transportation, mostly in the context of mainstream narratives with conventional linear structures. To advance our understanding and examine the differential effects of narrational complexity vs linear storytelling, we introduce a theoretical framework that maps the underlying cognitive and affective mechanisms involved in processing complex narratives, drawing on qualitative interview data and existing literature. We propose a mechanistic psychological approach that examines how executive functions—such as cognitive flexibility and goal-directed attention—foster flexible analytical dispositions essential for comprehension of fragmented and ambiguous story structures. We further propose that this disposition, along with metacognitive self-regulation, helps sustain the cognitive effort required to maintain engagement through narrational complexity, particularly when viewers experience frustration due to confusion. This framework provides a foundation for experimentally comparing varying degrees of narrative complexity, allowing us to (a) examine how individual traits, such as tolerance for ambiguity, shape engagement and (b) assess the potential of complex narratives as tools for fostering cognitive adaptability and psychological resilience in an increasingly complex world.

Lucia Cores-Sarria: The “Breathing” Camera: Psychological Effects Of Subtle Handheld Camera Movement In Audiovisual Narratives.

Among camera movements, the handheld camera stands out as a cinematographic technique that enhances narrative immersion, as noted by scholars and cinematographers. However, some film scholars critique it as intrusive and distracting. This study investigates the psychological effects of the “breathing” camera, a subtle handheld technique mimicking a human observer’s quiet breathing. Based on visual perception research, two features of the breathing camera stand out: (1) it provides depth information and (2) specifies a human observer, unlike other more mechanical camera movements. I hypothesize that, by enacting the visual experience of a human observer, the breathing camera enhances emotional and attentional engagement with the narrative. Additionally, I predict that it will not be perceived as intrusive. These hypotheses were tested in an experiment combining psychophysiological and self-reported measures. The findings offer empirical evidence that cinematographic effects are not arbitrary but are deeply rooted in our natural perceptual experiences, which helps explain why cinema is such a universal and powerful medium for storytelling.

Koji Yoshimura: Less certain, more meaningful: The role of individual differences in the reception of ambiguous film narratives.

To better understand the experience of complex stories, my research has focused on the subjective evaluation of the extent to which a narrative can be interpreted in multiple ways, or perceived narrative ambiguity. In two experiments, perceived narrative ambiguity was shown to predict appreciation (but not enjoyment) of movies. To understand why some individuals seem to embrace ambiguity while others dislike it, several candidate moderators of this relationship were tested. Results suggest that most people can appreciate ambiguous narratives, but preferences play a larger role than tendencies/traits in explaining why some experience stronger effects. Additionally, exploratory analyses reveal other relationships that shed more light on the subjective experience of complex narratives. This presentation will review these recent findings regarding perceived narrative ambiguity and highlight opportunities for advancing future research on narrative experience.


This symposium is supported by the Network Instititue, the Department of Communication Science and the Digital Behavioral Lab.