Telling to Understand: The Impact of Narrative on Autobiographical Memory [1st ed.] 9783030431600, 9783030431617

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Andrea Smorti

Telling to Understand The Impact of Narrative on Autobiographical Memory

Telling to Understand

Andrea Smorti

Telling to Understand The Impact of Narrative on Autobiographical Memory

Andrea Smorti School of Psychology University of Florence Florence, Italy

English language rights only - Rights reversion letter from Italian edition published by © il Mulino 2018. ISBN 978-3-030-43160-0    ISBN 978-3-030-43161-7 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

To Ada Fosco Fonzi and Jerome Bruner

Preface

When you write a book, sometimes you chase an idea still undefined with curiosity, trying to discover its full potential; at the end you may at best come to understand what you really wanted to say. Memory is asked to provide the necessary knowledge to undertake this path. Together with the knowledge that memory provides us with, perhaps because of the emotional and personal aspects of writing, even the most disparate memories of one’s own life come to light. This has happened to me. Two types of memories about events that I had often thought about have come to take on a new form and function, but for completely different reasons. The first memory concerned the stutter that afflicted me throughout my childhood and adolescence. The use of breathing, voice control, greater self-confidence, and something else created the end effect of a small miracle. Stuttering, even if it has emotional causes, is a mechanical failure in the articulation of language. It is basically a rumor that one does not “know” how to get out fluidly. As the voice acts as an intermediary between thought and language, stuttering is a partial inability to make language follow thought. Thoughts cannot be expressed adequately and come out in an aborted form. Not being able to hear with your own ears what you think, in the way that you would like to, creates the impression of not being able to say what you really mean and therefore produces further stammering, discomfort, and a sense of incompleteness of thinking. Stuttering has remained in my mind as a set of memories of an episodic nature, but closely related to the idea of having been (and continuing to be, albeit partly) a stutterer. These memories came into play subtly while, writing this book, I discussed the relationship between thought and language, and the mysterious leap between memory and narration. As we will see, this leap is represented in particular by the physical aspects of language, which are substantiated by vocal or graphic signs. Stuttering is a clear example of this discontinuity between mind and body, thought, intention to speak, and physical execution. The second memory also concerned my childhood. Antonio was the older brother of my playmate, Mario. Antonio was an engineering student and while Mario and I were playing, he used to study and repeat the lessons for hours at a time, with a few vii

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small interruptions to play the trumpet or comment on what Mario and I were doing. With the book held in his hands, and wearing a chamber jacket, he repeatedly measured the four corners of the house, and, while walking, he spoke, spoke, spoke, saying things that I obviously did not understand, but that I felt were important because they came from his “book of the university.” It was clear to me that those words written in the book flew inside Antonio’s head and were then pushed out in an almost compulsory manner by his mouth. This memory has remained impressed by the apparent contradiction between the idea of study as a movement in which the letters of the book “enter” into the eyes and mind of the reader, and an opposite movement consisting of bringing out these letters. Why should it be so important, or at least as important, to get the words out as to get them in? Later on, as the years went by, I discovered how useful it was to repeat a lesson or have someone listen to it. Reciting Leopardi’s “Saturday in the Village” from memory to my mother made me understand if I truly remembered that poem or not. Later, becoming a university professor, it was necessary to repeat lectures or reports to be presented in public. All this talk was considered a way of strengthening memory and thus facilitating speech. But there was something else, because I discovered that only by repeating the lesson did I realize what I did not know or understand. And this happened, fortunately or unfortunately, even in front of the students who were being taught. If putting my thoughts into words and speaking them aloud allowed me to understand whether these thoughts were clear to me or not, this meant that speaking brought about a new level of awareness compared with simply thinking. Writing this book, Antonio’s memory worked as a device that triggered other memories that led me to reflect on the role that talking plays in thinking, and how much telling can facilitate an awareness of memories or unexpected affections. I have been dealing with stories and memories for many years, starting with my experience as a visiting researcher in Geneva in 1986. Elsa Schmidt Kitzikis, with whom I worked, advised me to work on memory. The method consisted of asking children both to play and to classify toy objects (dolls, work tools, food, etc.) and, 1 week later, to ask them to remember how they had classified them. If I go back to those days with my mind, I have to admit that I was not aware of the implications of what I was doing. I had gone to Geneva to study Jean Piaget’s theory and its relationship with psychoanalysis, and I was not aware that for some years now other scholars had been talking about stories, nor did I consider myself a scholar of memory. But the proposed method aroused a certain amount of curiosity in me, because it combined different types of behavior such as play and classification. One of the things that emerged from those early experiments was that sometimes, when asked to classify objects, children used stories. Putting together a bear, a piece of bread, a female doll, and a child, they would say, “The mother and the child go for a walk and meet a bear for a snack.” Was this story a form of classification or play? In those early years I was lucky to listen to Jerome Bruner’s live voice, on the occasion of his honorary graduation at the University of Stirling, his masterly lecture in which he set out the ten principles that govern good storytelling. I had never heard anything like it before, but what Bruner said about stories (about specific

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events, diachronically described, with the use of intentional states, etc.) impressed me deeply because what came out of my research now found a much wider and more enlightening perspective. That was the period when cognitivism became hegemonic with respect to behaviorism—however, that “type” of cognitivism embraced the human information processing paradigm, which emphasized the idea of rational action and thinking. To move away from rationality, as it was defined, meant to be wrong. In those years, for a young researcher like me who paused to reflect on the relationship between Piagetian symbolism and psychoanalytical symbolism, hearing about a narrative thought endowed with its own specificity and validity—and yet different from rational logical thought—was a great encouragement to think from a new perspective. So it was that the word “narrative,” which I attributed as a label to the way in which children sometimes classified their toys, appeared to me the goal of a program to be pursued. I discovered then that the study of stories had existed for several years, but that no one, as far as I knew, had yet identified it as a real form of thought, and above all I discovered that there is a way of thinking not always used, and not by all in the same way, that is especially useful when you have to try to understand what happens between people that at first blush appear to be incomprehensible or inconsistent. Thus, the problem of voice and speaking to someone, and that of thinking and understanding in a way that is not strictly logical, have become dominant themes for me in recent years and create the basis for the construction of this book. I am happy that this book is now available to the English-speaking public. The reason is not only to introduce my work to people who speak a language other than my own. This is of course very important. But there is also another reason that will be even clearer to the reader at the end of this book. Translation is always a process of awareness of what you think. So the English edition allowed me to think more carefully about what I had written and thought in Italian. This helped me to formulate certain concepts differently by reviewing what I had written from a different perspective. Moreover, by investigating some linguistic issues, for example, also for the English language I found interesting analogies between Latin and Anglo-Saxon languages and this helped to support some hypotheses regarding the relationship between mathematical and narrative language and thought (see for example Chap. 8). This volume is the result of many years of work. Institutional commitments at the university have for a while reduced the space needed to gather ideas, reflect on them, and write about them. That is the reason why this work has had a long gestation. But a book comes not only from research but also from a wider field of experience in which others have an extraordinary influence. I would therefore like to express my sincere gratitude to all those who have helped me, directly or indirectly, to think, to devote time to myself, and who have offered me suggestions, criticisms, and tools of work. I would like first of all to thank Ada Fonzi Fosco for teaching me to understand that very often “less is more”: few things make more sense and provide more information than many. It has not always been easy to adhere to this principle but I have tried to do it here. With Jerome Bruner I naturally have a huge debt of gratitude that

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reading this book is not difficult to grasp. I would like to add that the sabbatical he spent in Florence in 1998 and the endless and truly informal conversations we had at dinner - in the company of our wifes Carol and Franca - have been for me not only an extraordinary opportunity for learning but also a unforgettable human experience. I am grateful to Anne-Nelly Perret Clermont for providing me with the necessary documentation on Piaget’s work on the problem of art in childhood, and to Claudia Stancati and Maurizio Torrini for their valuable advice on the study of the problem of language in Descartes. Fabrizio Desideri discussed with me the problem of aesthetics in knowledge and provided me with rich documentation on the subject. I am grateful to Leonardo Savoia for taking the time to examine issues that are central to me in the linguistic field, and to Paolo de Simonis for his copious bibliography in the etymological field and in the history of the language. I also thank Raffaella Setti of the Accademia della Crusca for her advice on how to move in these fields. I owe Maria Vittoria Tonietti important work tools about the origins of writing. My wife Franca Tani, colleague and psychoanalyst, has read and corrected some of the chapters of my work, suggesting choices and offering advice on the theme of interpretation in psychoanalysis. Xenia Schmalz and Corrado Caudek have introduced me to some useful bibliographical references on the issue of publication bias and, Nella Ciuffi helped me to make some choices about the problem of voice and pronunciation. In recent years, I have had frank and stimulating exchanges with Jens Brockmeier about constructional and cultural perspectives on narration. Talking to him has often meant discovering new perspectives with which to look at my research. I also want to remember Federico Batini and Simone Giusti for the constant attention they have shown for my work and for having provided me, through the biennial conferences Le storie siamo noi, with an opportunity for comparison of psychology, literature, pedagogy, and sociology of narration. I then discussed with colleagues, starting with my sabbatical in the United States, issues related to the narrative from a psychological, cultural, semiotic, and legal point of view. I want to remember Ilaria Grazzani, Antonio Iannaccone, Flora di Donato, Carole Petterson, Edy Veneziano, James Pannebaker, Michael Bamberg, Mirko di Bernardo, and Robyn Fivush. I have discussed almost daily many of the problems faced in this book with the research group that has worked in recent years in the laboratory of narrative processes: Benedetta Elmi, Chiara Fioretti, Debora Pascuzzi, Eleonora Bartoli, and Roberta della Croce. This workshop has also been realized thanks to the funding for the Cities for Children project (CAB) financed by the Tuscany Region POR FESR 2014-2020 (d.d.n. 3389 of 30/07/2014). To Chiara Fioretti and Debora Pascuzzi I am particularly indebted for having revised the Italian version of this text, suggesting modifications and further additions. I would like to thank my students who in recent and less recent years have given me the opportunity to teach what I knew (and sometimes even what I did not know) and have helped to me better understand what I thought. Teaching for me has been an unbelievable opportunity to learn. I would also like to thank Daniele Malaguti for

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the Italian edition (Il Mulino) of this book, Lilith Dorko for trusting in this book and supporting me in its revised and expanded Springer English edition and Cathrine Selvaraj for amending it from all the errors, misprints and all those inconsistencies that emerge when one language is transformed into another through translation. Finally, to conclude, I must confess that becoming the grandfather of two grandchildren allowed me to make new and incredible discoveries that I did not imagine I could still make after my own experience as a father. Florence, Italy

Andrea Smorti

Contents

1 Introduction: Why Narratives?������������������������������������������������������������     1 The Lives of Others����������������������������������������������������������������������������������     1 The Need to Tell��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������     2 Continuity and Coherence������������������������������������������������������������������������     5 Some Terminological Warnings ��������������������������������������������������������������     9 Objectives and Work Plan������������������������������������������������������������������������    12 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    14 Part I Narrative Understanding of the Self 2 Autobiographical Memory��������������������������������������������������������������������    17 The Laboratory of Proust ������������������������������������������������������������������������    17 What Memory and Autobiographical Narrative Have in Common ��������    19 What Is Autobiographical Memory?��������������������������������������������������������    20 Beyond the Archive Model����������������������������������������������������������������������    26 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    32 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    33 3 From Autobiographical Memory to Autobiographical Narrative ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    37 That “Mysterious” Jump from Memory to Narrative������������������������������    37 Looking for a Connection������������������������������������������������������������������������    42 Experimentation in Art������������������������������������������������������������������������    42 Experiments in Psychology������������������������������������������������������������������    45 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    49 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    50 4 Autobiographical Narrative������������������������������������������������������������������    51 The Heaviness of Voice����������������������������������������������������������������������������    51 Memory Becomes Voice��������������������������������������������������������������������������    52

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Contents

Memory Becomes Autobiographical Narrative ��������������������������������������    55 Autobiography ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    55 Autobiographical Episodes������������������������������������������������������������������    59 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    61 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    62 5 The Narrative Dialogue ������������������������������������������������������������������������    65 Research on Expressive Writing��������������������������������������������������������������    65 How to Narrate Changes the Memory ����������������������������������������������������    67 How the Other Transforms the Narrative������������������������������������������������    71 Narration and Conversational Rules��������������������������������������������������������    74 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    76 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    80 6 From Play to Narrative��������������������������������������������������������������������������    83 At the Beginning of Knowledge: The Pleasure of Understanding the Unexpected����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    83 Playing with Constancy and Variability��������������������������������������������������    92 The Child as a Scientist–Artist������������������������������������������������������������    93 A Nice Couple of Artists����������������������������������������������������������������������    97 When Play Becomes a Tale����������������������������������������������������������������������   101 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   107 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   108 7 The “Playful” Narrative������������������������������������������������������������������������   111 Beauty Between Rules and Deviations����������������������������������������������������   111 From Art to Science ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   116 The Principle of Reducing the Discrepancy��������������������������������������������   118 Phase One: Activation Faced with an Anomaly����������������������������������   119 Phase Two: Analysis of the Anomaly��������������������������������������������������   120 Phase Three: Create a New Category or Explanation Principle����������   120 Stories as Tools to Solve the Unexpected������������������������������������������������   123 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   128 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   130 Part II The Narrative Understanding of the Other 8 Count and Recount��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   135 Reading, Writing, and Counting��������������������������������������������������������������   135 From Gesture Language to Verbal Language������������������������������������������   138 The First Period: The Liberation of Hands with the Station Upright ������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   139 Second Period: From Hand to Mouth��������������������������������������������������   140 From Pictographic Representations to Writing����������������������������������������   141 Conclusion: The List as a Unifying Genre����������������������������������������������   144 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   146

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9 Man of Multiform Ingenuity����������������������������������������������������������������   149 Myth and Thought������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   149 The Multiplicity of Thoughts������������������������������������������������������������������   151 The Errors of Reasoning��������������������������������������������������������������������������   155 Systems of Reasoning������������������������������������������������������������������������������   162 The Two Hemispheres�����������������������������������������������������������������������������   164 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   166 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   167 10 Narration and Fuzzy Logic��������������������������������������������������������������������   171 The Intersection of Sets ��������������������������������������������������������������������������   171 Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Systems��������������������������������������������������   173 Fuzzy Logic����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   177 Narrative “Logic” and Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Systems��������������   183 “Against the Narratives”��������������������������������������������������������������������������   189 The Fallacy of Stories: But Are Stories All the Same?������������������������   189 The Unstoppable Tendency of Stories Toward Causality: What Is “the Cause” in the Narratives? ����������������������������������������������   191 Stories Use a “Post Hoc Ergo Proter Hoc” Perspective of a Reconstructive Type: Can We Think Without Reconstructing?������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   192 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   192 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   194 11 Text and Interpretation ������������������������������������������������������������������������   197 Text and Paratext��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   197 Three Ways of Interpreting����������������������������������������������������������������������   200 Human Conduct as Text ��������������������������������������������������������������������������   204 Interpretative Cooperation ����������������������������������������������������������������������   207 Conclusion ����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   215 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   216 12 Narrative Understanding in the Digital Age����������������������������������������   217 The Text Is Dangerous ����������������������������������������������������������������������������   217 From the Gutenberg Galaxy to the Internet Galaxy��������������������������������   221 Toward the Disappearance of the Text ����������������������������������������������������   224 Multiplication of Texts������������������������������������������������������������������������   224 Fragmentation of Texts������������������������������������������������������������������������   227 Photography and to Photograph����������������������������������������������������������   228 Direct and Indirect Reader ������������������������������������������������������������������   228 Post-Truth and Fake News ������������������������������������������������������������������   230 Toward the Disappearance of the Self ����������������������������������������������������   232 Conclusion: A Fourth Way of Interpreting����������������������������������������������   234 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   235 13 Conclusions��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   237 References������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   248 Index������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  249

About the Author

Andrea Smorti  has a Master’s degree in Philosophy (University of Florence), a specialization in School Psychology (University of Siena) and in Sport Psychology (University of Rome). He was Dean of the Faculty of Psychology of the University of Florence and he is currently a University Professor in Developmental Psychology in the School of Psychology, University of Florence. Taking a Cultural Psychology stance, in the last three decades he has been studying the problem of autobiographical narrative in different personal and social contexts, with particular regard to experiences of pain and illness.

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Chapter 1

Introduction: Why Narratives?

The Lives of Others

The Sanvitale di Fontanellato fortress stands, surrounded by a moat full of water, in the middle of the square of the village of the same name not far from Parma, with a population of about 7000. Its square plan develops around a central courtyard, with four corner towers, three of which are cylindrical. In one of these towers, the one on the left, there is an extraordinary structure, an optical chamber, perhaps the only one left in operation in Italy. In a circular, very dark environment, two systems of mirrors, and a prism placed in correspondence to the ancient loopholes, allow it to

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_1

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clearly reflect and project on three screens inside the room the 180° image of the square and its connecting streets. It was certainly not to control their fellow citizens that the Counts of Sanvitale, sometimes together with their guests, loved to gather to watch the life of their village. The “intelligence” systems were quite different at the time. It was an amazing “game,” a television or, if you like, a sort of “Big Brother,” through which “the lives of others” were spied on for the sake of observing and recognizing passers-by by commenting on clothes, poses, and deportment, and imagining what they were doing and why. But from where do we derive the fun that drives us to look at others from cafe chairs, from windows, or maybe from a balcony, when during the summer evenings, in many towns throughout, people come down the street for a walk and to have a chat with friends. What do other people possess that is so interesting, especially when we can spy on them with peace of mind from a distance? The answer is that we create the lives of others with our imagination, and we make it a story that intrigues us. We are good at building this story and we do it very easily.

The Need to Tell Vincenzo Rabito (2007) has built his story. All by himself, with an old Olivetti, he wrote an autobiography of 1027 pages with zero-line spacing, taking 7 years, from 1969 to 1975. He told of his life consisting of trenches from the First World War, bombs from the Second World War, hunger, and emigration. Vincenzo was semi-­ illiterate and one can say that he learned to write by writing. Many years after his death, his son Giovanni found the manuscript and handed it over to the National Diary Archive of Pieve Santo Stefano, where it is now kept. The book won the Pieve award in 2000. Narrating is an extraordinary human property precisely because its variability and flexibility are extraordinary. Through narrative you can go with Ariosto to the moon to seek the wisdom of those who lost it for love; turn a story into mathematical combinatorials as did Queneau; or simply not make anything happen as in Waiting for Godot, thereby violating the golden rule that wants something to happen, otherwise why tell? With narration you can imagine being a fetus and feeling all that, unfortunately, is happening between your father and mother, as it makes us imagine Ian McEwan in In the shell. The history of a people or a community can be reconstructed in a Manzonian way during the “Grida”, the struggles for bread or the plague in the Milanese area; to go down with Dostoevsky into the human interior as if it were a journey to the bottom of Hell; to talk with Calvin or Musil about philosophy and science; to tell, not moving an inch from home, the deeds of the pirates of Malaysia and forests with trees that ten men of strong physique could barely have embraced.

The Need to Tell

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The narrative can give meaning, if it wants, to any type of absurdity, whether it be the lists of Borges, the delirium resulting from a crime committed and a dreaded punishment, the sudden metamorphosis of a human body into that of an insect, or the slow and gradual transformation, described by Nesser in Carambola, of a normal mind in one belonging to a serial killer. This is because narrative is able to construct a frame that makes all of these “absurdities” plausible within a certain type of world. It can be used to talk about nothing or to tell small oddities that have occurred as in daily narratives, or to transmit and pass on large events involving the families of Buddenbrooks or the Russian people. This soft and resistant substance, so intuitive but so difficult to define, resembles Spiderman’s web: you throw it, you can make a big leap, a stunt that mocks physics, that makes distant and heterogeneous universes compatible because it is able to join any opposite. Some narratives become so persuasive that they inform people’s lives of themselves, so much so that Marquez could write that life is not what you lived, but what you remember and how you remember to tell it. In the Romantic era, narratives and lives were truly fused together. Just think of the transgressive lives of the romantic English poets Byron, Keats, and Shelley: short lives, marked by wanderings, loves, and deaths, by a passion for classicism, and a sense of freedom and transgression; all things that “create” life events. You write romantically and thus you live romantically. Through its diffusion by voice, print, or media, the narrative enters lives and becomes life itself to the point that the person feels inseparable from himself, as happens in Don Quixote with chivalrous deeds or to young people who committed suicide after reading The Sorrows of Young Werther. Given its ubiquitous nature, instead of narration, it would perhaps be more correct to speak of narrations, that is, of a variety of narrative exemplars. We find narrations in traditional cultures, in the daily life of “civilized” countries, in paleontological finds, in archeological sites, in historical research, in curricula vitae, in the biographies of scientists and writers, in the dossiers of those sought by the police, in the well-known characteristics of an offender, in research laboratories. But we also find them in objects, whether they be chairs, paintings and monuments, plastic bottles, or old handkerchiefs, they “speak” to us about their past and their uses; we find them in the landscapes, in the mountain valleys where the cows stand upright on the slopes and the rivers come down to the precipice, in the sea and in the cities, we find them in the wrinkled faces of the elderly as in a crying child or in a couple who quarrels walking down the street. The posthumous publication of Malinowski’s diaries (1989), written during his stay in the Trobriand Islands, revealing the most intimate experiences of the great anthropologist, also allowed a better understanding of the narrative and relational nature of scientific observation: the scholar would do well to abandon his claim to observe the object as if it were a detached and independent thing to tell together about himself and the other he observes. In the phylosophical field  the  Discourse on the Method by René Descartes, a work that helped to found what we think of as modern science, was written as an autobiographical work that narrates, in fact, the way in which the author came to

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formulate his theories on the scientific method. Before him, St. Augustine had used the Confessions, a cousin of the autobiographical genre, to talk about the nature of time; before that, Plato had used dialogue and the tale of myth for his philosophical arguments. Something similar happens in paleontology. The case of the mummy of Ötzi, also known as “the man of the Similaun”, an anthropological find of September 1991 in the Venoste Alps on the border between the Senales valley and the Ötztal valley in Tyrol, is quite illuminating in this regard. Scientific and instrumental development has allowed the amplification of information on this finding, even if it has not solved all the doubts of interpretation. Of this body, preserved inside a glacier, investigations conducted through the examination of osteocytes with mitochondrial DNA, have allowed us to reconstruct that it is a male human being, who lived in the Copper Age between 3300 and 3100  BC (but through radio carbon analysis the period seems to be even earlier, between 5300 and 5200 BC), who died between the ages of 40 and 50, originating in the area of Bressanone, belonging to the genetic strain of the man from Similaun, with genetic traits common to those of Sardinians and Corsicans, with blood group 0, with predisposition to cardiovascular diseases and lactose intolerance. Some phonetics experts even managed to trace the timbre of his voice and hypothesize, from the examination of his phono-articulatory apparatus, that he pronounced his vowels with a deep voice. It has also been ascertained that he ate ibex meat the day before his death from violent causes, as demonstrated by a flint arrowhead inside his left shoulder (penetrating deeply, in the direction of the heart) and some wounds, the unnatural posture of the body that seems to date back to an attempt to extract the arrow from his back. Further elements of this finding suggested that the man was part of a group and had escaped an ambush, probably together with a companion, who would carry his body on his shoulder to the place of death. The analysis of some pieces of clothing and shoes of the mummy, carried out using a mass spectrometer, which allows one to determine the chemical composition of the samples, also led us to think that Ötzi was a shepherd who took the herd to pasture during seasonal movements. The 61 tattoos with scars at the lower part of the spine, behind the left knee and on the right ankle, together with the results of arthritis at those points, have been interpreted by scholars as signs with a curative function. As if that were not enough, the copper of which the axe was made found next to his body, which seems to have come from the metal mines near Grosseto, suggested that even in those years, there was trade from Tuscany to the Alps. Therefore, a series of scientific examinations carried out on the remains of a man who lived more than 3000 years ago has made it possible to observe a number of “objective” signs that are not simply listed but connected in order to form a story. A story that is not only reconstructed by the reader of these lines but by the same scientist who, observing the scars, thinks of healing techniques of arthritis, seeing the arrowheads and the position of the body, hypothesizes a conflict and even transport by a companion, discovering that the copper of the axe was of the same type as that of the Tuscan metalliferous hills, and goes so far as to trace the history of trade in those millennia.

Continuity and Coherence

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Continuity and Coherence This example and, in general, that of paleontology, is illuminating of how a gap in historical continuity pushes a scientist to try to fill this “void,” as if man needed to build continuity to understand human events and perhaps even physical ones. In other words, starting from an interval between signs (documents, finds, testimonies, observations) datable according to the succession A–B … D–E, we try to find, or at least to hypothesize, an event (c) such as to join B and D, which otherwise would remain disconnected, completing the series: A–B (c) D–E. Stephen Jay Gould wrote that the question of the origins of modern man is particularly difficult for several reasons. Often the very setting of key problems: …depends on inferences about certain aspects of human life (such as, above all, language and behaviour) which, although determining, cannot be observed directly in the fossil remains; rarely is it possible to validate the explanations given through the usual scientific practice of prediction and deduction from laws of nature already known. On the contrary, they must necessarily be expressed in narrative form, describing contingent sequences of events, each of which will depend decisively on the complete range of previous states. In itself, this narrative mode would not be less reliable or more difficult than other forms of explanation, provided, however, that the historical evidence is so rich as to make the previous sequences verifiable. But fossil evidence is so rare and incomplete that it is difficult to have adequate information to ensure the correctness of the narrative series … The fact is that we modern people are real narrating creatures to the point that we should have named ourselves homo narrator or maybe homo mendax to recognize the lying character of our stories instead of sapiens, an adjective that often seems inappropriate. The narrative mode presents itself to us as a style naturally suited to organize thought and ideas. We should not be depressed if the hypotheses of multiregionalism or Noah’s Ark tell us different stories (Gould 1995, 31–34).

This attempt to link events together, even when there are missing data that make it impossible to establish a precise sequence, is an operation to which the historian also refers. It is no coincidence that White (1980) and Mink (1980) have argued, with different emphasis, that the story consists of an organization of the res gestae in a narrative way “in order to give them coherence, integrity, fullness and closure of an image of life that is or can only be imaginary” (White 1980). How else would it be possible to reconstruct a significant chronological succession of events from the annals and the chronicles if not, precisely, through the construction of a history? Something similar was Schliemann’s research on the city of Troy, inspired by reading the Homer's Iliad during childhood, and occurred through the progressive discovery of the seven successive layers of the city walls. What is this if not a story, a hypothesis that allowed the joining of missing data? Freud (1939) did something similar when, inspired by archaeology, he conceived psychoanalysis as a method that allows us to collect, going down “layer by layer” within the depth of the unconscious, pieces of memories to be reconnected within a single framework, creating a sort of novel about the life of a patient. Considering all the disciplines that deal with evolution and development, Padgett (2014) observed that “history” is not simply a record of events in sequence. The “story” is also our narration of this record of events. As all historians know, history,

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in this second sense, requires the selection by the historian of a record of available events. Continuing this argument, Padgett comes to observe that the narratives are an analogical instrument to bring the historiographic discussion on alternative narrative representations. In that sense, narrative can be considered a tool that can be used by evolutionary biologists, chemists and electronic engineers, by all scientists, really, who study alternative ways of representing evolution and development. It seems that man has little tolerance toward unsatisfactory explanations: when the reconstruction of events is inconsistent and incomplete he feels the need to repair the faults and to provide a more plausible answer. In many cases, hypothesizing becomes an involuntary activity and necessary to give at least a temporary sense of what is incongruent. In the absence of results obtained by quantifiable scientific procedures, myths, legends, and anecdotes can be used. Let us consider, for example, that area of study between history and the other human sciences that is biography. Let us take the life of a great leader, Alexander III, known as Alexander the Great. He was born in Pella (Macedonia) in 356 BC to Philip II, king of Macedonia, and his wife Olympiad, princess of Epirus origin. He received a Greek education from no less than Aristotle. In 340 BC, at only 16 years of age, he was entrusted with the regency of Macedonia. Two years later, Alexander led the Macedonian cavalry in the battle of Chaeronea. In 336 BC his father, King Philip, was assassinated. After his death, Alexander was declared king by the army. At the age of 20, he immediately committed himself to consolidating his power by suppressing possible rivals to the throne. In just 12 years of his reign, he conquered the Persian empire, Egypt and other territories, going as far as those now occupied by Pakistan, Afghanistan, and northern India. He died in the city of Babylon in 323 BC, perhaps poisoned, or perhaps because of a recurrence of malaria that he had contracted previously. How can these brief biographical notes, which could be further expanded with other historical data, justify the extraordinary precociousness of a great leader? Is it enough to have been educated by the “master of those who know” to explain such a surprisingly overwhelming life? And so anecdotes help to fill the gaps in knowledge. For example, at the age of 12 or 13 Alexander manages to tame the horse Bucephalus given to him by his father, in a way that reveals all his intelligence: realizing that the animal was afraid of Alexander’s shadow, he placed him with his snout facing the sun before climbing on his back. Moreover, it seems that Alexander had a blue eye and a black eye, a rather amazing characteristic, at least at that time, that may well match his equally amazing, extraordinary, and precocious abilities. Let us also consider another leader who looms large in the cultural imagination: Winston Churchill. How do we explain Winston Churchill’s life? His parents, who belonged to the aristocracy, were too busy travelling around Europe and never put their feet in his nursery. When he was seven years old, he was forced out of the arms of the only person who really loved him, his nanny, and sent to boarding school to study. Insolent, full of anger, disobedient to orders and unable to sit composed he was regularly beaten by the master and mocked by the other boys. With a real talent for writing, however, he was unable to learn things mechanically by heart; he could not pass an exam.

Continuity and Coherence

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When he graduated last in the class, his father’s comment was that he would never do anything good (Belsky 2007).

Faced with such an evident inconsistency between youth and adulthood, one cannot help but build stories, perhaps attributing to Churchill the dowry of resilience to make it an example of those individuals who are stimulated by frustration and adversity, a little like Antaeus, who took more and more strength every time Hercules threw him on the ground. Or we could attribute to the nursemaid who played a decisive role in the formation of a bond of secure attachment, or perhaps think that he was one of those gifted boys who are bored and dissatisfied with school. The need for continuity, concatenation, and coherence can be seen in other fields. Consider that the biographical genre so often used today is the CV (curriculum vitae), through which the author speaks of himself, often in the third person, producing, through dates and descriptions of things done, a plausible and consistent story about how and why he became precisely that type of person who now has every right to aspire to that particular position. A doctor’s medical history, a partial biography of a patient’s health, is also a succession of potentially important facts (previous illnesses, recurrent symptoms, accidents, life habits, familiarity with illnesses, anomalous events) that can only make sense through their “stitching,” which makes it possible to exclude irrelevant memories from the salient and causal ones. Moreover, stories are not only those that we read in novels or that scientists use to reconstruct events and make assumptions. Stories inspire metaphors for the construction of scientific models and theories. According to Sarbin (1986) “mechanicism” is based on the metaphor of the transmission of force, “organicism” on the notion of organism and the relationship between part and all, and “contextualism” on the historical event and the narration. Narration and historical knowledge have the same semantic structure. Both the narrator and the historian tell stories: the narrator writes about imaginary characters in the context of real environments; the historian writes about events presumed to have taken place by people whose actions are reconstructed with the imagination. Sarbin concludes that narration and history are the key metaphors of psychology. And in fact “the child as a small scientist”, “the polymorphic and perverse child”, “the child educable through conditioning”, are just like many images of childhood, metaphors endowed with an undeniable narrative force. There have been, as is perhaps understandable, discordant voices with respect to these visions of the value and effectiveness of the narratives. Stawson (2004) has expressed a critical stance towards the concept of the narrative Self and the idea that people reconstruct their lives as a story. He argues that the notion of narrative coherence clashes with the difficulty that in many cases we encounter in finding a common thread, and the fact that there are real moments of discontinuity, for example, between childhood and old age. Given his skepticism about the scientific effectiveness of narrative models, the author hurls himself against those who make narration a therapeutic tool, judging them dangerous. About 10 years ago, Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) wrote a book entitled The Black Swan. In it the author considers the problem of the predictability and

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unpredictability of events. His text, a work that is at times biting, polemical, but highly documented, develops the thesis that unpredictable events, or “black swans”, are such mainly because men and experts reason on the basis of an idea of a norm, the linearity and causality typical of a world that he calls “mediocristan,” in which variables are distributed according to a bell curve, as happens for the stature of people or the years of life; events are recursive, and knowledge of the past leads to making predictions about the future. What is not taken into consideration is the hypothesis that there is another class of events that comes from a world other than the first and that he defines as extremistan. In this world, the typical distribution of events, such as the wealth of people, does not have a bell-shaped distribution, relations are non-linear, inequality dominates, variability is not grouped around the average, knowledge of the past does not allow us to make predictions about the future. In this world, black swans are the masters. The fundamental error that a sensible man can make is that of exchanging the two worlds, but above all that of believing that he is in the mediocristan when it is in full swing extremistan. One of the inclinations that leads us to make this mistake, according to Taleb, is the unstoppable need that man has to invent stories. The narration, in fact, by its very nature, gives events an organization and a forced order, even if perhaps plausible and coherent. In doing so, it transforms the case into a cause, considers necessary a correlation that is illusory, uses the first examples that come to mind to demonstrate its own theory (heuristics of availability) or places stereotypes at the beginning of a causal chain (heuristics of representativeness). Furthermore, the narrative reconstructs the events from the perspective of the present and therefore always in retrospect, without taking into account that the events that took place “there and then,” were acted upon by people who could not have known how things would evolve “here and now.” For example, studies on the period before the outbreak of World War One, starting with the trend of the bond market, show that investors were unaware of what was coming. But economists and historians studying that period many years later commented that the outbreak of war was predictable on certain economic grounds. They therefore retrospectively construct a story with a well-determined causal path starting, however, from their point of observation, without considering that the actors of those events, “there and then”, could not have had access to all the information to which the historian has access “here and now”. In conclusion, according to Taleb, narratives constitute a fallacious and dangerous cognitive process, not only because they misuse the concept of cause and cannot anticipate or recognize unexpected events, or because they choose a point of view in the present to understand the past, but because they give easy, reassuring, and ultimately illusory, answers. The question that then arises is whether this unstoppable need that man has to understand reality in all its various manifestations by building stories, although it is a stimulus for artistic creativity, may constitute a vulnus in the thought of the scientist and the common man, a convenient device to arrive at a conclusion that may not be true but that is plausible and reassuring. This question thus poses a not insignificant problem: that is, what to do when we want to do more than tell pure fictions, in

Some Terminological Warnings

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poems and stories? Should we be warning our young pupils about the dangers inherent in building stories? This work is aimed at providing an answer to this problem. Narrations are indispensable tools not only for informing or communicating but also for understanding ourselves and others, that human events cannot understood without storytelling, that narrative understanding, a theme on which this volume is centered, occurs both in interpersonal communication, and in other situations, such as memory, formulating hypotheses about reality, inventing stories, and reading or writing texts. I also argue that narrative understanding is particularly effective in tackling the problem of the unexpected, of what is different from a norm, and ultimately that it has the tools to organize the variability of social reality.

Some Terminological Warnings To better focus the objectives and the work plan it is first necessary to make some terminological clarifications. First, it is useful to distinguish the term “narrative” from others such as “story” or “account.” Following the definitions operated in narratology, for example, by Genette (1987), three different aspects can be identified in the concept of narration. The first is the act of narration, that is, the enunciation in itself, or narration in the strict sense, which can be expressed in a written or oral way (sometimes this term is also used with regard to cinema or painting), in solitary or public conditions. The second aspect is linked to the fact that the act of narrating produces an account or a text. This text-account (see also recount) can be considered as the signifier of the events that are narrated, or the story. Story, then, is the third aspect. It is the meaning produced by the account. Of course, an account can refer to different meanings and therefore to different stories because everyone listening to or reading an account can build from it a personal story. In this book, as far as possible, I use the term “narrative” in a generic way to refer to all three aspects. I use the expression “narrative act” to denote the enunciation and the text or account ( or also recount) to indicate the product of the act. Finally, the term story is used to refer to the events told. It is also useful to distinguish between two aspects in the account or text. The first aspect concerns the chronological order of events. Generally referred to as fabula, it follows a sort of logical–causal historical reconstruction. The second aspect relates to the way in which these events are actually introduced and presented (with their temporal shifts and anticipations) by the narrator. This aspect is called interweaving sjužet (Thomasevsky 1928; Propp 1928). Although the first aspect refers to a historical progression of events, and is the result of a conceptual construction of the speaker or writer and thus contains a fixity of its own, this second aspect is immersed in the narrative strategy that, for example, consists of starting the story with the end and then moving to narrate the events from their beginning. In this way, the sjužet can modify the story because in this case, starting from the ending and

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then returning to the beginning, it is as if the narrator wanted to demonstrate the necessary concatenation of events—I show you how you have come to all this. Third, in this book, I use the words “narrator” and “narratee” to indicate the narrator and the recipient of the narration respectively. This use may scorn purists. In fact, in narratology, the narrator is the voice who narrates, and the narratee is the interlocutor of this voice. These two figures must be kept separate from the author (the one who designed and materially wrote the book) and the reader (the one who reads it and then comes into contact, albeit indirect, with the author). This distinction is of course very clear in written narratives, but what about in oral ones? Even if in some cases the narrator could tell a story of others, it would not be easy to distinguish all those cases in which, in fact, the narrator speaks through the mouth of another author. Moreover, it would be quite difficult to clearly develop the theme I intend to deal with by continuously distinguishing the case of written narration from that of oral narration. In some cases I have, but in other cases I have not. In this book I therefore speak of narrator and writer sometimes in an indistinct way as well as narratee and reader asking the reader to make the necessary transformations from one situation to another. Finally, it is useful to note that in the course of this book I refer to two basic types of narratives: plebeian and noble. Plebeian narratives are those that embody the communicative exchanges of everyday life, whereas noble ones are those that are part of the literature, art, and history of a people. I am well aware of how problematic this distinction can be. It is also a valuable tool for reflecting on narrative understanding. The important thing is to make this not a dichotomous distinction, but a fluid and interactive one. Diaries, travel memories, letters—these are not born of literary intention, but of and for personal and private use, however, they can over time become great works of literature. After all, there are works that become public because they are printed, but then end up being forgotten. Moreover, literature cannot but be inspired by common stories if it wants to build noble stories. Where else would you get the human material to narrate? (This is a need that Dostoevsky, during a stop in Geneva, confided to his beloved niece Sofya Aleksandrovna Ivanova: the need to see the Russian people again to be able to finish writing The Idiot (Dostoevsky 1867).) On the other hand, common stories feed on the noble stories that are transmitted in books, newspapers, or in the cinema. Noble stories provide direct and indirect references to people to form their own plebeian stories that in some cases—and why not?—could turn into noble stories. I would like to point out that by plebeian narratives and noble narratives I do not mean a difference in aesthetic level, but rather the fact that some narratives become public and take on the role, under certain conditions, of principle inspirer or model for those narratives that people, including artists and scientists, produce during their daily lives. The question then arises: how much does the novel of the nineteenth century, or the English theater, help us to understand feelings of envy, sadness, or anger? Because, if they help us to understand these feelings, not only should they be subjects for study in order to understand plebeian narratives, but they should also be

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made obligatory in degree courses in psychology, so that the psychologist can draw on the scenarios created by Flaubert or Shakespeare in his “toolbox.” In this book I deal with plebeian narratives as processes that enter into people’s daily thinking and interactions. However, to study these narratives, it will be necessary to refer to the noble ones too, because the study of common stories alone would be insufficient. The noble narratives, in fact, present clearer narrative forms because they address the community, to be published, traded, and read. As seen in the following chapters, the different literary forms are a useful experimental benchmark for studying narrative thought and daily narrativity. I would also like to add that not all noble narratives are as literary as novels or poetry. There are other types that are not created for aesthetic purposes, such as those of the historian, who rigorously and methodically interprets documents, finds connections, searches for confirmation, evaluates coherence, and finally traces a possible reconstruction of events. Its main purpose is to provide a version of the past that is plausible not only as narrative coherence but also as a concordance of sources. And there are the legal narratives that constitute a further source of extreme interest for the psychologist who deals with daily narratives, because these narratives go in search of evidence for the accusations, antecedents to the offense, aggravating or mitigating conditions in a similar way. This is distinct from what people do when they have to reconstruct the reasons for a dispute, or find a person responsible, or issue a moral judgment. Doctors, psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and educators also create narratives when they write about “clinical cases” or “life stories”. In these types of artifacts the history of a person is reconstructed to understand a certain event such as an illness, a symptom, a social transition, a cultural change. In short, dealing with everyday plebeian narratives leads us to keep an eye on what happens in another narrative world where the narratives are institutional forms to tell the reality in its most realistic or fantastic varieties, to regulate human relations, to build shared versions of the facts. Noble literature is used by plebeian literature because it represents recognized forms of education useful for understanding human actions and their reasons. On the other hand, plebeian narratives are always exposed to become noble literature when they rise to forms of knowledge and collective memories. There is a field in which the need for man to tell, listen to, and understand stories is particularly evident. The stories are very linked to everything that is a little strange, unknown, or anomalous. That is why you usually try to tell them. But in this area, it is the negative anomalous events that are most relevant. Let us take what is usually called bad news. Bad news is information about tragic events, things that are worrying, anguished, sad; really, anything with unpleasant content. Although hundreds of magazines all over the world satisfy the curiosity of ordinary people about the loves, betrayals, or holidays of this footballer or that movie star, the “most serious” news that is published in newspapers, on television, or in online news covers in the vast majority of cases events with negative connotations. Anyone can verify this by dividing the news into good or bad, reassuring or alarming. On 30 March 2018, for example, this was the news that was captioned on Sky News.

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1  Introduction: Why Narratives? Los Angeles: A. Schwarzenegger after heart surgery is stable—Clashes on the march back to Gaza. Palestinian media: 14 militants killed by the Israeli army—Skripal case: Moscow expels 150 Western diplomats including 2 Italians—Rome: man beaten to death in a bar in Mentana: stopped a 30-year-old—London: Scotland Yard denies searches Russian Aeroflot plane in Heathrow—Government: Salvini let’s see if from 5 Stars only chatter—Mexico: broker of Pavia killed with two gunshots to the head—Terrorism: stopped in Cuneo a Moroccan, did jihadist propaganda on Facebook—Murder in Catanzaro: old man killed by gunshots.

Why is it that news of progress in civil, economic, political, cultural, and moral life is broadcast less frequently? Does it happen less or do we like them less? And if we like them less – why?

Objectives and Work Plan Let us now turn to the plan of this volume. It supports the existence of a well-defined link between comprehension and narration, as constituted by narrative comprehension. Narrative comprehension has two sides. The first side involves the person as a narrator. Narrating one’s own stories to someone leads, under certain conditions, to an understanding of them and to thinking about one’s own life and discovering new meanings. Narrating becomes a way to reflect on oneself. The second side involves the person as the recipient (or narratee) of another’s narrations. Listening to or reading the narratives of another is undoubtedly a way that helps us to understand their thinking, even under certain conditions. There are several reasons why self-­ understanding and understanding of another are closely linked by the narrative process. One of them is that the same person, in a dialogue, becomes alternately narrator and narratee. Playing both roles, they cannot help but articulate the two sides of narrative comprehension, that which concerns themselves and that which concerns the other. From this point of view, as noted by Paolo Jedlowski (2009), the narrative is interaction. The work is divided into two parts. The first part is mainly dedicated to the study of the first side of narrative comprehension. Two different origins of this kind of understanding are identified: memory and play. The narratives we produce from autobiographical memory are intended to give order and meaning to events that have taken place in the past. They are therefore more interested in sticking to reality, even with all the reconstructions due to the fact that this past is remembered from the perspective of the present. The narratives that we produce from a playful dimension, however, are mainly built according to aesthetic methods and are more free from the need to adhere to reality. However, through them, a second reality is built, that is, a possible world useful for understanding what has happened, is happening, or will happen. In both cases, one of the prerogatives of narrative is to be equipped to repair anomalies. Stories are particularly useful when inconsistencies, unforeseen events,

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or contradictions emerge in our experience. The purpose of stories is to repair these inconsistencies by building a plausible explanation. Narrative comprehension must therefore bring a certain order back into what may appear chaotic or anomalous in one’s own life story. The second part is dedicated to the study of narrative understanding as an understanding of the other. Here we examine different aspects of the interpretation that the narrator makes of the text produced by the narrator. When narrative comprehension is effective, it implies coordination between different interpretative points of view and between different cognitive processes, both automatic and reflective, slow and fast, integrating the activities of the two hemispheres and using specific resources from existing stories. In this way, narrative comprehension becomes a fundamentally integrative process, that is, capable of making different resources of the mind cooperate with each other. The second part closes with the eleventh chapter, which examines the problem of narrative understanding within the “Internet galaxy.” Some of the main changes in narrative understanding are analyzed. They are mainly determined by the way in which the notion of text and self has been transformed. These changes have in turn transformed the way we build stories, tell, and interpret what is told. In the conclusions I look at the two sides together and show how they are interconnected. In this book, therefore, I want to show how people can understand themselves and others only if they can not only tell themselves and others but also tell about themselves and others. In other words, humans must constantly build stories and tell them to understand both their own and others’ events. Although, as we shall see, the construction of stories in daily life has many links with other processes of a higher scientific and artistic level (the so-called noble narratives), in many cases it appears to be simple and natural, and exercises a real pleasure of the intellect such as that which, for example, one tries to observe in the lives of others. This is a little like the Marquises Sanvitale were seen to do, who, when they looked at the life of the city reflected in the private screens of the tower, enjoyed producing stories about those who entered the mirror, obtaining the sensation of entering “inside” those lives. Entering the lives of others is therefore linked to the activity of observing the world and to curiosity. Entering the lives of others is indispensable to feeling empathy, to being able to help, although this help, done for good, can sometimes be conducted so badly that it has unpredictable outcomes, as Ian McEwan (2001) showed in Atonement, where the predisposition of a little girl toward building stories about others is the principle of the horrible events told by the novel. How then do we build stories capable of helping others, so as to enter their lives only through imagination? How can we make narrative comprehension a precious tool for going beyond mere information, toward the construction of a new and productive meaning?

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References Belsky, J. (2007). Experiencing the lifespan. New York: Worth. Dostoevsky, F. (1867). A Sof’ja Aleksandrovna Ivanova.  Letters of Fyodor  Letters of Fyodor Michailovitch Dostoevsky to his family and friends.  Translated by Ethel Golburn Mayn. London: Chatto & Windus 1917. Freud, S. (1939). Der Mann Moses und die monotheistische Religion. New York: Knopf. Freud, S. (1939). Transl. Katherine Jones The Mann Moses and the monotheistic religion. Amsterdam: Allert de Lange. Genette, G. (1987). Seuils. Paris: Seuils. Gould, S. J. (1995). Uomini e fossili (pp. 5–63). RCS Libri & Grandi Opere: Milano. Jedlowski, P. (2009). Il racconto come dimora. Torino: Boringhieri. Malinowski, B. (1989). A diary in the strict sense of the term. Stanford: Stanford University Press. McEwan, I. (2001). Atonement. New York: Anchor Books. Mink, L. O. (1980). Everyman his or her own annalist. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.), On narratives (pp. 233–239). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Padgett, J.  F. (2014). History, evolution and social networks. Princeton, NJ: The Institute of Advanced Study. Propp, V. (1928). Morphology skazki. Leningrad. Rabito, V. (2007). Terra matta. Torino: Einaudi. Sarbin, T. (Ed.). (1986). Narrative psychology. New York: Praeger. Stawson, G. (2004). Against narrativity. Ratio (New Series), XVII(4), 428452. Taleb, N.  N. (2007). The Black Swan: The impact of the highly improbable. New  York: Random House. Thomasevsky, B. (1928). Teorija literarury. Leningrad. White, H. (1980). The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.), On narratives (pp. 1–24). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Part I

Narrative Understanding of the Self

Chapter 2

Autobiographical Memory

The Laboratory of Proust

Fig. 2.1  Marcel Proust’s room in Boulevard Haussmann in Paris (Musée Carnavalet, Paris)

The photo (Fig. 2.1) represents what, in modern terms, could be called the “laboratory of memories” of Marcel Proust. Having moved to Boulevard Haussmann in 1906, where he would remain because of his state of health, except for a few months between 1914 and 1916, Proust devoted himself solely to writing his novel so as to finish it as soon as possible, urged on by the specter of not being able to live long. In the solitude of his room, which he called “the ark,” covered with cork and always left closed for fear of his own health, which became more delicate every day, Proust protected himself from everything, from noise, from smells, from people. Here he © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_2

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took little more than milk and the essence of coffee and, lying down and using his notebooks and a school pen holder, he would not stop writing, correcting, deleting, modifying, rehashing, but above all adding, completely filling the page to the edges, to the point that Céleste Albaret, his faithful housekeeper, had the idea of sticking to the edges of the pieces of paper what he called paperoles and which always allowed further, unfailing, and endless additions and changes to what was being written. What does this solitary laboratory, where Proust was locked into writing during the last years of his life, have to do with the idea of narration as a relational process? As we see better below, this laboratory helps us to understand how writing is an activity aimed at someone and plays an extraordinary role in memory. That the narrative is a process that takes place between oneself and another seems a fairly obvious statement. A narrator tells a narratee something. It is possible that immediately afterward the narrator becomes in turn a narratee and that a mutual and reciprocal relationship is established between the two. Less obvious and much more complex is to understand the nature of this process, the cognitive and emotional components within the act of telling, the role played by the other, the influences that the narrative exerts on both partners involved in this important aspect of interpersonal communication. Posing these problems, we are entering into a field of philosophical and scientific reflection that concerns the I–you dialogue, intersubjective understanding, human communication, themes explored by philosophers, psychologists, communication engineers, ethologists, and neuroscientists. Paul Ricoeur (1990) addressed the question of the Self–Other taking it, if you can say so, from the heart: the identity of the Self. On the one hand, identity is like a mark impressed on the person in his or her remaining equal to himself or herself, because, beyond the changes, the child is always the same subject even once he or she has become an adult. Continuity over time allows stability and therefore the possibility of talking about a person’s “character.” This aspect of identity is called idem, or the same thing. However, no form of development would be possible if only this form of identity existed and, moreover, the Self cannot exclude the Other from its own life. The Other can be constituted by the parents, by the peers, and by the significant others, by the unexpected and by the obstacles to overcome, by the Other understood as the possibility of being different from what we are, an Other that Freud (1914) has called “Ideal of the I” or that Marcus and Nurious (1986) have defined as the “possible selves.” Precisely through this continuous internal tension the Self can become something different from what it is. This second form of identity was defined by Ricoeur as ipse and allows you to open yourself up to the Other, recognizing his or her affinity. If idem represents the continuity, idem is to strive for diversity. According to Ricoeur, narrative is one of the most important and common ways in which identity as otherness is realized: narrative identity. Through narration, whether this takes place in a relationship with a concrete other, or within the person with a multiplicity of imagined selves, a form of dialogue takes place where the Self itself (as temporal continuity) becomes another by itself (with the words of Ricoeur: “soi meme comme un autre”). The same development of thought is possible

What Memory and Autobiographical Narrative Have in Common

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precisely because the other by himself or herself allows the Self to become Other. And this is easily perceived when we reflect on the role of empathy or mind reading. In both cases the person is enriched with new emotions and thoughts thanks to the experience he has with another person. Autobiographical narrative allows us to organize these different experiences into a story. Through this story the Self succeeds in realizing both the sense of continuity of the idem and the sense of discontinuity of the ipse. But autobiographical narrative is inextricably linked to autobiographical memory. This is precisely about the Self–Other relationship in the past as it is remembered in the present moment. The autobiographical narrative also takes place in the present and speaks of a remembered past, but it is not limited to telling of a relationship between oneself and another because it materially addresses this account to the other, that is, the listener  or the narratee. Moreover, although memory is first is silent, narrative is verbal and sound, although memory is made of smells, tastes, sounds, voices, patterns, and images, narratives must be able to transform these contents into words and phrases. What happens when these two processes meet? What happens, for example, when memory is taken out and transformed into narrative? The external reality is eminently social in nature; therefore, when we consider the narration as a language and we represent it addressed to another, this Other, whether he listens to us or not, is destined to exert a considerable influence on what we say and on how we say it. We will thus begin this journey in search of the two sides that the narrative somehow unites: the Self and the Other, beginning by examining what memory and autobiographical narrative have in common.

 hat Memory and Autobiographical Narrative Have W in Common Memory and narration are processes that have a common social basis and numerous interconnected links because they are both linked to the life and history of human culture. Material memory systems such as notches on bones, drawings, paintings, statuettes, sculptures, writings, and other types of signs have always been a way of reproducing both memory and narrative. Writing, which began more than 5000 years ago and evolved through different material supports such as clay, papyrus, palm, parchment, wax, paper, and silicon, to take those linear and elaborate forms that we know today, is a social system of recording both memories and narratives. The same applies to other ways of preserving knowledge, such as the art of remembering, printing, automata equipped with rotating cylinders built during the Enlightenment, the punch cards of the Industrial Revolution, and then, in modern times, the phonograph recorder, photography, cinema, computer, etc. All these cultural systems have been the foundation of both memory and narrative (Malone 2013). In addition, public narratives (Sommers 1992) and collective memories (Halbwachs 1950) are further examples of how memory and narrative share a social

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basis. Public events are a fundamental part of people’s social identity and are mediated by public narratives that are narrative forms of collective memory of society. Public narratives connect individual memory to collective events. A war, a natural disaster or a football championship are collective events that people remember thanks to the fact that public narratives have been built on them. The evolutionary cultural models are another example of public narratives on which personal and collective memories are based. Going to school at 6 years of age and becoming an adult at 18 are socially recognized ways to mark the ages of life and that enshrine what is normative and what is not with respect to a given age group. This means that people’s life stories or their memories are assessed differently depending on whether or not they fall within what can be expected to happen in that age group, what is the norm or the exception for that particular culture. The role of the social world, with its relationships between adults and children and between peers, is also decisive from the earliest stages of the development of memory and autobiographical narrative. Autobiographical memory begins to develop at the age of 3 or 4, when children begin to verbalize their memories (Quas and Fivush 2009). It is through conversation with parents that children internalize the narrative structure of a shared speech by using it to guide the memory of significant past experiences. These conversations about memories between children and parents are considered crucial to the process of developing autobiographical memory. Studies in this field have in fact underlined that the different interactive and communicative modalities of the caregivers lead children to organize their memories differently, for example, by giving them points of view and mental states (Nelson and Fivush 2004). Growing up, children and adolescents use narrative patterns learned from the family environment, transporting them to other important contexts such as school and animating them in their relationships with peers. Again, the feedback received from the interlocutors during the narration of their life events plays a decisive role in the way in which children build their autobiographical memory and give meaning to the past (Pasupathi and Hoyt 2010). Autobiographical memory and narrative are therefore deeply interconnected and share common social roots. They are part of the second signal system, because both the memory of an event (in the form of an image, sound, voice, smell) and its narration through words are similar to signs or symbols that stand in place of the original object. In this way, they make the past in the present experienceable. However, even if they have a shared basis, it is clear that memory and narrative are not the same thing.

What Is Autobiographical Memory? Autobiographical memory represents a very large part of conscious and unconscious life. It is the basis of our ability to know the world because it is responsible for the memory of information and for forgetting it. It therefore constitutes the foundation of the relationship with others and with oneself.

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In the search for the “place” where the narratives originate, autobiographical memory is undoubtedly the first place to begin. At least apparently it represents the “prius” of the narrative, that culture from which autobiographical narratives come to life. Autobiographical memory is a type of episodic and semantic, and in part procedural, memory of life events that affect the Self, but as the Self is itself part of social plots, autobiographical memory is not only about the Self but about the Self in relation to others (Conway and Pleydell-Pearce 2000). An important feature of autobiographical memory is that the events of the past are remembered from the perspective of the present. This notion is not new and should be traced back at least to St. Augustine (Confessions, approx. 398) who, in his Confessions, affirmed that there are not three times—past, present, and future—but only one, the present time, or if we want, the present of the past, which is the memory, the present of the present, which is the perception, and the present of the future, which is the expectation. So what is time? If no one questions me, I know; if I want to explain it to those who question me, I don’t know. But I can say with confidence that I know: without anything that passes, there would be no past time; without anything that comes, there would be no future time; without anything that exists, there would be no present time. Two, then, of these times, the past and the future, as they exist, since the first is no longer, the second is not yet? And as for the present, if it were always present, without translating into the past, it would no longer be time, but eternity. If therefore the present, in order to be time, must be translated into the past, how can we also say of it that it exists, if the reason why it exists is that it will not exist? Therefore, we cannot speak with truth of the existence of time, except in so far as it tends not to exist. Thus the narration of the true facts of the past [is not extracted] from the reality of the facts, which are past, but from the words generated by their images, almost footprints imprinted by them in our soul through the senses at their passage (St. Augustine, Confessions, XI, 14, 23).

Although a modern constructivist might reproach Augustine for the notion of the image of the past as a footprint left by the event, it is absolutely surprising how the philosopher of Hippo was able to so clearly anticipate the importance of the present perspective as the summit with which to consider the past and the future (Manning et al. 2013). He even goes so far as to grasp the importance of the function of language as a transporter and translator in the present of that image-shape, and to understand, in very modern terms, how the primary function of memory is not that of retaining accurate representations of all life events but only of those that have a personal relevance for the present purposes of the Self. Therefore, memory has the specific task of helping the person to conserve and continuously rework his or her self-knowledge. Autobiographical memory is not a unitary concept but is composed of multiple systems. Some memories are kept as episodes (the time I went on a trip to visit the Vatican Museums), others in the form of knowledge (I know that the Vatican Museums are in Rome), and still others as procedures (knowing how to visit a museum). Memories can also relate to places, people, voices, smells, noises (buzz of tourists during the queue and in the halls).

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These different ways of remembering have been defined by Tulving (1985) as a-noetic (procedural memory), noetic (semantic memory), and autonoetic (episodic memory). Episodic memories allow a virtual journey back to the past in precise places and times. Semantic memory, on the other hand, lacks the virtual character that characterizes episodic memories, but it constitutes a structure of knowledge that supports the journey through time. Autobiographical memory is intimately linked to the Self. The model developed by Martin Conway (2005) highlights this very clearly. At the heart of Conway’s theory lies the construct of self-memory system (SMS). This system appears to consist of two basic components: the working self and autobiographical memory. The working self plays a very important role: it influences both the codification processes of autobiographical memories and their passage from short-term to long-­ term memory. It is organized on the basis of a complex hierarchy of aims and themes of the Self. The themes of the Self function as active “reconstructors” of experiences that allow us to recover the events and to place them in a semantic plot. When a theme becomes relevant for the purposes that the subject pursues in the present, those autobiographical memories with which the theme was initially associated are activated in his or her memory. Memories vary in their degree of accessibility to consciousness. According to Conway and Holmes (2004), memories of events that have been most relevant to the Self in a period of life are more accessible and have a higher fluency. This causes autobiographical memory, through the selection of memories, to create a sort of trace of personal changes throughout life, favoring the memory of those experiences that define the Self (self-defining experiences). The memories that define the Self, that is, the memories of those experiences made by the person in the course of his or her life connected with the themes of the Self, form his or her “life story” (Nelson and Fivush 2004; McAdams 2001). The life story of a person is not always and in the same active way: at certain times some themes prevail over others, depending on the events that he is experiencing at that particular moment of his existence. In short, the working self is the principle on the basis of which the memories that form the representation of a person’s life are chosen, connected, and organized among themselves. As far as autobiographical memory is concerned, it is in turn formed by two distinct systems of representation: autobiographical knowledge and episodic memories. Autobiographical knowledge has the function of classifying events in an order that makes it possible to recover them. Events are organized in a hierarchical way according to more or less general categories. The life time periods are general knowledge about very long time periods (years), for example, “My life in the first year of classical high school.” The general events are knowledge of time periods in the order of months, weeks or days, such as “The period in which I prepared myself for the first test in Italian.” The specific knowledge events, finally, are knowledge of events in the form of images, smells, sensations, associated with a specific experience: “the feeling of bewilderment when I was alone in front of the professor of

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Italian who asked me for a verse of Dante.” There is a specific relationship among the life time periods, general events, and specific knowledge events because the memories transposed in the memory tend to schematize when they are similar to others that repeat themselves. On the other hand, by scheming and assimilating each other, memories can lose traces of individual experiences and end up being confused, especially if they concern similar events that occurred during the same period of time. Episodic memories, the other system that composes autobiographical memory, refer to information characterized by precise spatial and temporal connotations. As we are affected by countless stimuli, it is not possible to store this large amount of information. Some of them are immediately discarded because they are irrelevant, others are temporarily stored in the working memory, and others are stored in the short-term memory when they are linked to purposes that can be achieved in the short term. If they are not subject to attention or if they are not used, this information is lost quickly; otherwise, they enter the warehouse in the long term. In such cases, the information relates to long-term purposes relevant to the Self. Experiences stored in the long-term memory and referring to specific episodes can be retrieved and brought to the present. According to Conway (2005), the self-memory system, in regulating the maintenance or loss of memories, is based on two opposing principles: the principle of correspondence and the principle of coherence.1 According to the first, in autobiographical memory we try to represent reality as it is. At the same time, however, with the autobiographical memory, we find ourselves obeying the principle of coherence by which it attributes meaning to a particular memory, inserting it into a larger plot, so as to form a coherent whole with the other memories. This coherence is not limited to the relationship of a memory with others, but involves the Self in its entirety. Therefore, the main purpose of memory is not only to represent reality but also to represent the Self in an efficient and coherent way. The principles of both correspondence and coherence are adaptive to the survival of the organism. The first because it is aimed at representing reality and therefore allows an adherence to the environment and its history. The second, because it seeks to satisfy the needs of the Self, takes into account its aims and its limited memory capacity. The two principles are complementary because the need for coherence works to the detriment of the need for correspondence and vice versa. This means that if our representation of the past is accurate and detailed in every aspect, it becomes difficult to give an overall meaning to what we remember. On the other hand, a very coherent reconstruction of our past raises doubts about its authenticity. Coherence always involves a certain selection and organization of the various

1  While the correspondence historically refers to the adaequatio rei et intellectus of Aristotle and St. Thomas, the coherence arises from the need to relate what we learn to what we have already known and then to verify a compatibility of the new information acquired with other beliefs, memories, thoughts. These terms have been taken up by B. Russell (1912), who uses them in particular when he outlines his theory of truth.

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elements and is therefore incompatible with a representation that seeks complete correspondence with all individual reality data. It should also be pointed out that short- and long-term memory warehouses work differently on the basis of the two principles. In short-term memory, where episodic memories are stored and more immediate purposes prevail, the principle of correspondence, according to which the individual tries to represent reality in as much detail as possible (remembering to have closed the door of the house), dominates. In the long-term memory, in which both autobiographical knowledge and episodic memories are deposited and therefore long-distance goals more directly related to the Self prevail, the need for coherence prevails over the need for correspondence. From what we have just said, it is clear that memories differ according to whether they are organized into broader, coherent, and interconnected systems of knowledge, or whether they “record” specific aspects of the experience of that event. If an episodic memory is inserted into a wider system of knowledge, this increases its sense of coherence and can facilitate its recovery. For example, thinking about a summer in Greece and the people I met there, I can more easily remember that particular situation in which “I met on that Greek island that English journalist who played the guitar.” In short, the single episodic memory has the function of informing us about the event that happened, but the general sense of what happened needs to be reconstructed through other memories, a broader organization that refers to the history of itself and the knowledge of the past. Memories thus have a hierarchical organization that moves from a single episodic memory of a specific event to interconnected systems of memories that form networks of knowledge about their past. In Fig. 2.2 it is possible to grasp this progressive generalization and abstraction of memories through what Neisser (1981) has called “repisodic” memories2 until we arrive at a generic memory that constitutes an important aspect of autobiographical knowledge. This dimension of memories (shifted more toward precise correspondence with reality or linked more with other similar memories with which it forms a coherent semantic network) is made possible by the specific format that a memory can take. The memories can take the form of a detailed account typical of “time travel” (“today my father took me to kindergarten with the car”) or a more general and schematic form (“my father always uses the car to take me to kindergarten”). These two forms have been called verbatim and gist (Brainerd and Reyna 2004). When memories are stored in the verbatim format they are less elaborate in their meaning. They may be inconsistent or even contradictory, but, following the principle of correspondence, they are richer in detail and more accurate, similar to the memories of episodic memory. Evaluating a souvenir in verbatim format one can ask oneself if this memory refers to a fact that actually happened or not.

2  Repisodic memories are episodic memories that, referring to events of the same type that are repeated (for example, the father accompanies his son to school on Monday, Tuesday, etc., throughout the week), take on a generic character similar to the script.

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Fig. 2.2  Generic–specific organization of autobiographical memories

Memories in gist format are instead closer to semantic memory, thus constituting a sort of summary of the episode that took place, rich in meaning and coherence but poor in detail and not very accurate. Evaluating a souvenir in gist format one can ask if the memory that my father always uses the car to take me to kindergarten could hide the memory of a time when he didn’t use the car. Autobiographical memory has important relationships with emotional life. Experiences that are not lived with a significant level of emotional involvement do not activate an adequate level of attention, are “recorded” as not important and are easily forgotten (Christianson 1992). On the contrary, events that recall a medium or high level of emotional activation are recorded as important and are more easily remembered. However, the emotional coloring of a memory is also important (Levine and Pizarro 2004). In fact, the positive or negative tonality of a memory involves a different type of processing. According to some authors (Schwarz and Clore 1996; Clore et  al. 2001), positive affections promote a type of processing top–down according to which the information is elaborated according to general schemes and the approach to reality is more global. Thus, the memory is reconstructed in a gist format rather than verbatim (Schwarz and Clore 1996; Clore et al. 2001). Negative affects, on the other hand, lead to a type of bottom–up processing that is more detailed and focused on the stimulus: in this case, the analysis focuses on the details

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of the surrounding world according to a verbatim format (Wegner and Vallacher 1986). This was confirmed by a study by Peterson et al. (2010) who verified that, in a sample of university students, positive memories of relationships with parents and friends are expressed in a more general way than negative ones. In addition to the level of emotional activation related to a memory and its quality, there are other variables that affect the type of processing. The state of mind we are in when we remember, depending on whether it is more or less similar to that we were in when we codified that particular experience, is a very important condition for the memory. When the two present and past situations are congruent (i.e., the prevailing state of mind at the moment of the recall is similar to those of the codification of the event), the fluency of memory increases (Rusting 1998). The congruence triggers a circular effect because the patterns of Self prevailing in the person at the time of remembrance lead him or her to recall those events that are congruent with them. If in the present the schemes of Self related to positive experiences prevail, the positive experiences are more easily remembered because they are more relevant and congruent with the Self (Levine and Bluck 2004). If, on the contrary, self-patterns related to non-positive experiences prevail (as can happen in a depressed person), negative experiences are more easily recalled because they can be more easily integrated into the person’s conception of himself. However, if this were always the case, a person would only have to remember those events that are consistent with the prevailing state of mind in the present and this would prevent any change. Fortunately, people can react. That is, in some cases they know how to go toward incongruity to try to voluntarily regulate their mood. Therefore, when they are in a negative state of mind, they can try to actively recall those experiences that are contrary to this state of mind. An attitude of active modification (or reparation) of one’s emotions prevails and the person searches for memories of positive events to reduce the effect of the negative state of mind (Setliff and Marmurek 2002; Pascuzzi and Smorti 2017). One of the ways that people try to intervene in memories is to modulate their processing according to the gist or verbatim format (Holland et al. 2011). Sometimes, when confronted with unpleasant events, using the gist format memory allows the person to think about an unpleasant past without going back over specific, negative, and painful details (mnemonic interlock) (Williams 1996). Remaining at a distance from a memory, without recalling details or potentially painful aspects, helps us to better bear its emotional value, but of course does not help the processing of it.

Beyond the Archive Model Studies on autobiographical memory have had the merit of highlighting how memories are linked to the needs of survival and therefore to the need to maintain contact with reality, but, at the same time, also to the need for coherence that makes some memories more important and central because they contribute to defining the Self (self-defining memories), to maintain its integrity and to ensure its continuity over

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time. These studies have been able to define the link between memories and the system of the Self, the role played by aims, themes, and autobiographical knowledge. They showed that the hierarchical organization of memory allows a more general or more specific elaboration of experience and that this elaboration is particularly important for the way in which emotions associated with memories are remembered. Some of this research has allowed us to better understand how autobiographical memory is a process based on transforming to remember: to keep our experiences alive we need to remember them (in the sense of calling them to mind), but when they are recalled to mind they are also transformed. Nevertheless, one cannot help but recognize, with Jens Brockmeier (2015), that many studies on autobiographical memory have made rather rigid use of the archive model. Although we refer to this text for the rich documentation and arguments about the unsuitability of the archive model to adequately represent the functioning of autobiographical memory, I would like, for the purposes of this work, to make some considerations that will lead me to introduce the role of language in autobiographical memory and narration. The archive model is strongly evocative of daily acts or practices. Acts as encoding, storing, maintaining, retrieving suggest the idea of depositing, after identifying it, something in one place and then resuming it when necessary. This concrete representation of a sort of mental storekeeper or librarian is undoubtedly very suggestive because it reminds us how much language and thought come from the materiality of actions, from gestures, from mimicry, from visual sensoriality, as well as tactile. Studies on the origins of language in the human species and on the way in which it develops in children go in this direction. I focus on these issues in the next chapters. The idea of an archive also seems to fit in well with the phenomenon of flashbulb memories (Brown and Kulik 1977), those “photographic” forms of memories that often concern events with a high emotional impact and that really seem like archive documents that can be inspected. The feeling of truthfulness in these cases is enhanced by the fact that these memories also contain information about the person who remembers. For example: what he or she was doing and where the person was when the attack on J.F. Kennedy was announced on television. Even memories of traumatic experiences can be particularly vivid and the fact that they bring out some of the more central aspects of the memory, overshadowed others, seems to confirm the truthfulness of the archive model. In fact, in the case, for instance, of the “gun effect” the central element of the memory “the shiny gun of the bandit robbing the bank in front of our eyes” and not what precedes this event is filed. Flashbulb memories and traumatic memories lend themselves to confirm the model of memory in which the memory has the function of preserving intact events considered important as much as possible because they are part of a collective memory or events personally and directly experienced. Another reason why the archival model is so evocative is because in mnemonics, starting with Cicero, the process of memorization and recall works exactly like this (Yates 1966). That particular element that you want to memorize is placed in a specific place (a theater, a palace) well known and present visually to the person. In this

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place it can be found when needed and recalled to consciousness for the purposes of the present (method of loci). Although the method of loci is very suggestive in confirming the idea of memory as an archive, it is not sufficient to demonstrate that the memory in question is exactly the same and that it does not change in quality (vividness, clarity, detail, emotional tone, etc.). Moreover, a large part of the memorization activity is involuntary, as is its recall. So what happens to those memories that are not voluntarily archived through mnemonics? When we think of an archive we imagine a place where a document is placed in a certain space and, according to a prior classification per genus proximum et differentia specifica is, on the one hand, identified as similar to other documents that share this common property; on the other hand, within this genus, it is assigned its own specificity as part of a subset (species). For example, in the Dewey system, which classifies works by triplets of numbers separated by a point, Homer’s Iliad would be inside the 883 (800 for literature +80 for Hellenic +3 poetry and epic fiction). In this way, this book can be assigned a categorical label so that it can be easily found. When we need that text again, we just have to go to the 800 shelf, row 80 and, at position 3, we find it again. Maybe a little aged, but the document will be the same as when we first classified and filed it. It can happen that, with increasing volumes, it is necessary to classify the work with additional figures. Thus, Homer’s Iliad could be classified with 883.01, where 0.01 indicates all the works of the history of Greek literature from its origins to the sixteenth century. Structural elements of this process are that: (1) there is a “thing” called a document (for example, Homer’s Iliad); (2) this specific document is assigned a meaning through a classification (e.g., being part of the literature and Hellenic and Poetry and epic narrative, and belonging to the origins of the history of Greek literature); (3) this classification has a particularly close relationship with other categories (e.g., with other works of Greek literature, poetry, etc.) or of subordination to wider categories (e.g., all Greek literature); (4) this document remains a material “thing” even if, according to new criteria of organization, changing the general logic of the archive, it can be classified further. If we now try to adapt this notion of archive by making it an interpretative model for memory, we find that the operation only works partially. In many studies on memory it is assumed that there is a “thing” called memory that is the result of a prior coding of an event. In this case, the relationship between archive and memory is similar to the relationship between the document that is classified and inserted into an archive and an event that is encoded in the memory store (see points 1 and 2) above. Also with regard to points 3 and 4, there are similarities between archive and memory because, as in the archive, the document is classified in relation to the principle of similarity–diversity; in addition, in memory the memory is classified in relation to similar memories (see general events or life time periods) and its location in relation to other memories can change in relation to the general logic of the system (transition from short-term memory to long-term memory, location of the memory in relation to a different theme of the Self).

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However, although in the archive, the materiality of the document remains stable over time, in memory, the record of the event changes profoundly. What we recover is not the same memory that we have archived because it is assigned different meanings. It is just a “different” memory, even if it refers to the “same” event. This is for a variety of reasons. 1. First, because the archive of a library or museum constitutes a form of collective memory. As such, its purpose is to preserve objects or documents in an orderly manner and according to shared and pre-established criteria so that they can be used not only in the present but also in the future. The memory of a person, even if connected to the collective memory, is instead individual, because it must serve the same person and his or her purposes. The criteria it chooses is therefore idiosyncratic. Thus, he or she will be able to pass on his or her memories to his or her children or grandchildren, he or she will be able to make his or her memories collective by telling them, and in this way he or she will help to build systems of collective memories. But his or her memory will still remain personal. 2. Moreover, a person does not have theoretically unlimited memory power like an archive. The individual mnestic power is around the “magic” number 7±2. Because of this, the person may need to change classification systems because the events of life and the same process of growth and aging may multiply or reduce links with other memories and force them to recall the same memory along other paths. 3. Third, from the time a memory is created to the time it is recalled, there are a number of transformations that cannot be explained on the basis of the archive model. Even if we were to accept an external → internal directionality (perception of external reality → memory), as the archive model presupposes, we would still have to take into account that experiences, in order to be codified and then transformed into memory, are primarily subject to forms of selection and reorganization. The perceptual act itself is a highly selective act. Moreover, by passing through short-term and then long-term memory, a memory is further transformed through processes of categorization and hierarchy that must also take into account other experiences and the need for self-coherence. 4. It should also be borne in mind that the life of memories is intimately linked to the life of the person, to his or her development and to the experiences he or she has. During the period of “retention,” it may happen to meet again important aspects of the original event (for example, the person returns to the same place where the accident in which he or she was involved occurred or meets the same colleague with whom he had an altercation, etc.). This can lead to the phenomenon of reinstatement through which the “original” memory is compared with the event as it is perceived in the present and the amalgamation of these two representations is again “archived” (Brainerd and Ornstein 1991). Other events that accompany the life of a memory are the activities of rethinking or rumination on the same event. This rethinking can also contribute to a better understanding of the extending encoding, that is to say, a process of recoding that, from the moment the event was first codified, extends through this whole process

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of rethinking until this process of recoding  includes a reinterpretation and a reconstruction of what happened. 5. Then the attitude must be considered that the person has toward that memory and that is substantiated in his or her attempts to think about it, to avoid it, to look for other memories to change his or her mood (see affect regulation hypothesis of Greenhoot et al. 2009) or to schematize it according to a gist format if he or she wants to reduce the impact and make it more blurred. 6. But above all, the experience mentioned above is modified by the act of calling it to mind. Remembering determines a rehearsal effect, which reinforces the memory of the experience. In fact, as Kandel demonstrated, repetition causes physiological effects such as the concentration of neurotransmitters in synapses and the increase in interneuronic connections (Kandel 2012). The activity of rehearsal can also occur in the case of false memories. The fact that not all the memories that make up personal “archives” are the result of direct experience of an event is an example of this. When a false memory is created, it then has a life similar to the other memories by inserting itself into the knowledge a person has of his own life within the general events or life time periods and thus becomes an integral part of his past. What is commonly called the process of retaining a memory is therefore anything but an archive from which to extract a specific document. The life of a memory is very different from a journey without shocks, at the end of which people remain the same as they were when they left. The life of a memory is a continuous transformation linked to the fact that people “live” through time. There are other experiences and knowledge that interact with memory and there is inner activity made up of rethinking, reorganization, efforts to understand what happened, the need to regulate emotions, the comparison with similar experiences, and the narratives of what happened. All these variables condition the life of a memory and determine its transformation, its upheaval, its maturation or castration, and its germination of other memories. The archival model, particularly when used in the strict sense, therefore presents serious problems in explaining the functioning of memory. This model is also called into question by the most recent investigations into the brain. These have shown that there is no clear evidence for the precise connection between specific brain areas and certain operational processes that can distinguish, on an anatomical and functional level, the act of remembering from that of perceiving, the act of perceiving from imagining, remembering from simulating (Schacter and Addis 2009; Edelman and Tononi 2000; Corballis 2015; Brockmeier 2015, for a review). Edelman and Tononi (2000) have, for example, demonstrated that multimodal connections, be they fibers of corticocortical or thalamocortical connections, are the basis of primary consciousness. Primary consciousness is the ability to generate a scene (i.e., build a relationship with objects) in which a large amount of heterogeneous information is integrated in order to guide present or immediate behavior. Primary consciousness takes place in a present moment that is vague and transient similar to

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what W. James meant by the expression of specious present3 and what Edelman and Tononi call “remembered present.”4 Only later, with the appearance of language, does the child begin to have the necessary awareness to distinguish among past, present, and future. In primary consciousness, perceptual categorization and memory are almost simultaneous because it is not possible to categorize reality if there is not already some memory of it, as we will see better in the next chapters. This is the reason why the brain processes underlying the perception of an object and those underlying the memory of the same are almost coincidental. Schacter and Addis (2009) have identified the hippocampal region as the brain area that underlies the processes of relational memory and simulation of future events. Both past (remember) and future (simulated through the imagination) events are always part of the events covered by the episodic memory, which helps the construction of future events by extracting and recombining past information and then imagining a new event. The hippocampus appears as a two-faced structure: it looks forward with the front while it looks back with the back. It is activated in both structures when people remember what they had imagined for the future (Corballis 2015, 46). It is therefore difficult to maintain the archive model when the recording of an event, the memory of the past, the perception of the present, the expectation of the future, the imagination and the memory of the imagination are not always distinguishable elements, on the functional anatomical level too, and when these processes change through their use because, as Augustine would say, “the past is remembered with the words of the present.” St. Augustine’s words lead us to consider a second major problem in memory studies. I am referring to the problem of language. Studies on autobiographical memory are in fact in the difficult condition of having to define the functions of memory but of not being able to do so except through the use of language, thus ending up studying not autobiographical memory but autobiographical verbal memory. Take for example that important area of research on the reminiscence bump (Brown and Kulik 1977), i.e., the evolutionary phenomenon consisting in the very significant increase in memories of events that occurred during the adolescent period. The memories related to this age group have been studied mainly according 3  Specious present is that characteristic that the present perceptions have of being already in the past when they reach the consciousness because the perception of the duration is already remembered. This makes the notion of time even more uncertain because not only do the past and the future not exist, as Augustine says, but also the status of the present is precisely specious (James 1890). 4  Edelman and Tononi think that in order to clarify the notion of the present recalled, it is necessary to concentrate the efforts on the primary consciousness, that is, the capacity to build a mental scene integrated into the present. This does not require language or a sense of the true and proper Self. It is their belief that the integrated mental scene depends not only on the perceptual categorization of incoming sensory stimuli—from the present—but, more importantly, on their interaction with categorized memories—with the past. They consider that integrated mental scene to be a “remembered present” (Edelman and Tononi 2000). For a study of the “present moment” see also Stern (2005).

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to two methods: the method of the stimulus words and the method of the most important memories, otherwise known as free memory (Bartoli and Smorti 2018). The stimulus word method consists of asking participants to produce memories associated with the stimulus. In many cases the stimuli consist of words with an emotional value (e.g., quarrel) or names of concrete familiar objects (e.g., house) and the participants are invited to think and then to tell or write about the memories connected to those words. In other cases, figurative, auditory or olfactory stimuli are presented. The method of free recollection is to ask participants to produce a recollection orally, in writing, or simply thinking about relevant events experienced personally. In this second case, it is the subject who must find an “important” memory (Sotgiu 2016). In some cases, the request is to describe the first memory that comes to mind estimating that it is the most important because it has higher fluency. Although the method of stimulus words activates a process of association bottom–up whereas the memory of important memories stimulates a strategic research process top–down, in both methods the person is asked to related the memory through short sentences or stories. Therefore, both methods use the study of memories through language. It is difficult to study autobiographical memory without using language, but if language becomes a variable that intervenes between the act of mnestic recall and the response to the test, how can one attribute the results to memory instead of to the “language of memory”? If the autobiographical memory includes traces of images (faces, places, etc.), sounds, smells, tastes, etc., this mental content, once told, assumes the structure of a story. It ceases to be only autobiographical memory but becomes autobiographical memory told. Scholars of autobiographical memory have so far been unaware of this problem. There is no doubt, however, that even narrative studies are partly responsible for the delay in dealing with these problems by connecting narrative and autobiographical memory.

Conclusion Studies on autobiographical memory therefore leave two problems open. The first is the preservation of memories: are they kept as the model of the archive predicts? In reality, we know that memory is linked to the act of remembering and to the existential events of the person who remembers. Which means that it is the present that drives the act of remembrance. The second problem is language. This is a theoretical and methodological problem. Theoretical because autobiographical memory is not the same as autobiographical narrative or autobiographical memory narrative: methodological because if autobiographical memory is at least partly distinct from autobiographical narrative, how do we study it without “dirtying” it with verbal instruments? The two problems, that of the archive and that of language, are structurally linked because language is one of the most powerful means of transforming autobiographical memory.

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It is therefore necessary to put at the center of attention a delicate and fundamental question, that of the passage from an internal world to an external reality or, to put it in the terms of this volume, from autobiographical memory to autobiographical narration. Two more general considerations can be drawn from the analysis developed so far. The first is that memory is a system characterized in a hierarchical way: some information is specific and related directly to the events to which it refers; others are generic or general and, as such, do not correspond to a representation of events but rather constitute a generalized knowledge of them. On the one hand there is variability, mutability, and unpredictability in the world of experience represented by the episodic memories; on the other hand, there is constancy, repetition, and iteration. Memories are grouped according to some common characteristics, as well as a principle of prior knowledge that facilitates classification and generalization. I come back to these aspects several times during the course of this book and it is not necessary now to dwell on them further. The second consideration concerns the distinction between the memory as a product and the memory as the act of remembering. The episodic memory is a representation of the past. Remembering is the act by which we reach or form this memory. The fact that a memory concerns the past and remembering takes place in the present is already an opposition that prevents us from finding memory in the same way in which we have archived it. This highlights the insufficiency of the archival model of memory because memory is transformed through the act of remembering.

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Corballis, M.  C. (2015). The wandering mind. What the brain does when you’re not looking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Edelman, G. M., & Tononi, G. (2000). Universe of consciousness. How matter becomes imagination. New York: Basic Books. Freud, S. (1914). Zur Einführung des Narzißmus. Jahrbuch der Psychoanalyse, 6, 1–24. English Edition: Freud, S. (2018). On Narcissism: An introduction. New York: Routledge. Greenhoot, A.  F., Johnson, R.  J., Legerski, J.  P., & McCloskey, L.  A. (2009). Stress and autobiographical memory functioning. In J. A. Quas & R. Fivush (Eds.), Emotion and memory in development (pp. 86–120). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Halbwachs, M. (1950). La mémoire collective. Paris: PUF. English edition: Halbwachs, M. (1992). On collective memory. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Holland, A. C., Addis, D. R., & Kensinger, E. A. (2011). The neural correlates of specific versus general autobiographical memory construction and elaboration. Neuropsychology, 49, 3164–3177. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Kandel, E. (2012). The age of insight: The quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain, from Vienna 1900 to the present. New York: Random House. Levine, L. J., & Bluck, S. (2004). Painting with broad strokes: Happiness and the malleability of event memory. Cognition and Emotion, 18, 559–574. Levine, L. J., & Pizarro, D. A. (2004). Emotion and memory research: A grumpy overview. Social Cognition, 22, 530–554. Malone, M. S. (2013). The guardian of all things: The epic story of human memory. New York: St. Martin’s Press. Manning, L., Cassel, D., & Cassel, J.-C. (2013). St. Augustine’s reflections on memory and time and the current concept of subjective time in mental time travel. Behavioral Sciences, 3(2), 232–243. Marcus, H.R., & Nurious, P. (1986). Possible selves. American Psychologist, 41, 954–969 McAdams, D. P. (2001). The psychology of life stories. Review of General Psychology, 5, 100–122. Neisser, U. (1981). John Dean’s memory: A case study. Cognition, 9(1), 1–22. Nelson, K. (1996). Language in Cognitive Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Nelson, K., & Fivush, R. (2004). The emergence of autobiographical memory: A social cultural developmental theory. Psychology Review, 111(2), 486–511. Pascuzzi, D., & Smorti, A. (2017). Emotion regulation, autobiographical memories and life narratives. New Ideas in Psychology, 45, 28–37. Pasupathi, M., & Hoyt, T. (2010). Silence and the shaping of memory: How distracted listeners affect speakers’ subsequent recall of a computer game experience. Memory, 18(2), 159–169. Peterson, C., Bonechi, A., Smorti, A., & Tani, F. (2010). Distant mirror: Memories of parents and friends. The British Journal of Psychology, 101, 601–620. Quas, J. A., & Fivush, R. (Eds.). (2009). Emotion and memory in development. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ricoeur, P. (1990). Soi-même comme un autre. Paris: Seuil. Russell, B. (1912). The problems of philosophy. London: Holt and Company. Rusting, C.  L. (1998). Personality, mood, and cognitive processing of emotional information: Three conceptual frameworks. Psychological Bulletin, 124(2), 165–196. Schacter, D. L., & Addis, D. R. (2009). Remembering the past to imagine the future: A cognitive neuroscience perspective. Military Psychology, 21(1), S108–S112. Schwarz, N., & Clore, G.  L. (1996). Feelings and phenomenal experiences. In E.  T. Higgins & A.  Kruglanski (Eds.), Social psychology: Handbook of basic principles (pp.  433–465). New York: Guilford. Setliff, A. E., & Marmurek, H. H. C. (2002). The mood regulatory function of autobiographical recall is moderated by self-esteem. Personality and Individual Differences, 32, 761–771. Sommers, M. (1992). Narrativity, narrative identity, and social action: Rethinking English working-­ class formation. Social Science History, 16(4), 591–629.

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Sotgiu, I. (2016). How do we remember happy life events? A comparison between eudaimonic and hedonic autobiographical memories. The Journal of Psychology, 150(6), 685–703. St. Augustine (approx. 398). Confessions. Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press, 2010. Stern, D. (2005). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. New York: Norton. Tulving, E. (1972). Episodic and semantic memory. In E.  Tulving & W.  Donaldson (Ed.), Organization of memory (pp. 381–403). New York: Academic Press. Tulving, E. (1985). Memory and consciousness. Canadian Psychology/Psychologie canadienne, 26(1), 1–12. Wegner, D. M., & Vallacher, R. R. (1986). Action identification. In R. M. Sorrentino & E. T. Higgins (Eds.), Handbook of motivation and cognition: Foundations of social behaviour (pp. 550–582). New York: Guilford. Williams, J. M. (1996). Depression and the specificity of autobiographical memory. In D. C. Rubin (Ed.), Remembering our past: Studies in autobiographical memory (pp. 244–267). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Yates, F. A. (1966). The art of memory. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.

Chapter 3

From Autobiographical Memory to Autobiographical Narrative

That “Mysterious” Jump from Memory to Narrative

Fig. 3.1  An example of actors reciting according to the “commedia dell’ arte”

The commedia dell’arte, born in Italy in the sixteenth century, was not so much a kind of theatrical representation as a way of producing shows. In fact, the performances were not based on written texts but on sorts of plots, also called scenarios, which the actors would improvise. For this reason, the commedia dell’arte could also be called “improvisational” comedy (Fig. 3.1).

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_3

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The plot described in a very synthetic way the succession of the scenes and the interweaving of the events, with the sequence of the entrances and exits of the characters, providing a sort of reminder for the actors’ improvisation work. The actors had to have excellent mimicry skills, good speech, imagination, an ability to synchronize with the other actors, communicativeness, creativity, speed in making decisions and adaptation to unforeseen situations that may occur during the performances. In addition, the actor had to have his own repertoire, that is, the knowledge accumulated over the years of improvisations to play, for example, the role of Harlequin and Columbine. For this reason, improvisation did not produce a completely new performance because it was based on powerful mnemonics reinforced by a continuous exercise. To this end, each actor had to collect a set of lines, songs, short comic sketches, monologs, to be used on several occasions: an easier job if each actor specialized in a single character. Of course, improvisation was not limited to theater, but also concerned painting (think of Kandinsky), music (just to give an example, jazz), not to mention poetry, dance, sculpture. Even in these cases, however, improvisation is always a creation “starting” from something known: in theater a scenario, in music a theme. And, even if there are examples of artistic performances that strive to be totally improvised, without scenarios or themes, it is difficult to exclude the artist from referring to previous knowledge or previous performances. It can be reasonably argued that speaking is also a form of improvisation. In fact, in everyday conversations, words are spoken without being previously programmed and without a predetermined script. That is, it is a matter of transforming thought and emotions into language in an instantaneous and comprehensible way. But how does this transformation happen? The concept of archive allowed us to provide at least a partial answer because, according to this model, it is about recalling something that is already inscribed and therefore transferable. We have seen, however, what the defects of this theory are. The example of the commedia dell’arte provides us with a way of starting to search for the solution to this problem, because it makes us understand that when we speak we do not improvise completely. In the meantime, each of us has a repertoire of doing things and ways of saying, then improvisation always takes place within a given situation or scenario. It can be in front of a cup of coffee, at a family reunion, at a job interview, etc. In this chapter I deal with the mysterious jump between memory and narration. This “leap” is a kind of improvisation, even if this improvisation happens in life as a reciting according to a subject. It is no coincidence that Shakespeare wrote: “All the world’s a stage, all the men and women are merely players” [As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII] and that sociologists such as Ervin Goffman (1956) talked about everyday life as representation. Moreover, the word script itself suggests that people move through life as actors following a script. Thus, we have some interesting suggestions: in theater and in life we follow scripts, we move according to scenarios, we use improvisations. Maybe even when we tell the story we improvise according to certain scenarios? What happens in our consciousness before we begin to tell and while we are telling? Even though teachers like to repeat to their pupils “think before you speak,” no one actually thinks first about what they have to say and then say it. When you ask

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about the breakdown of an engagement, the birth of a new friendship, or why the new washing machine is broken, you first have a vague idea of what you should say or maybe you think about one aspect in particular, but then the rest comes out “gradually.” From a certain point of view, talking is like riding a bicycle. When riding a bicycle we must not remember that we must first grasp the handlebar with at least one hand, raise one leg to mount in the saddle, put the foot on a pedal, press the pedal in order to impress that minimum speed to the vehicle so that the boost that pushes me forward can counteract that of gravity, etc. More simply, every single movement, coordinated with the others, is set in motion thanks to a procedural memory that, in an almost automatic and unconscious way, allows the execution of the whole procedure. From a phonatory articulation point of view, I don’t need to remember how to pronounce an “r” (vibrating consonant) or an “l” (lateral liquid) or the word branch rather than balcony. It is the procedural memory that, as it guides the coarser movements needed to pedal, so guides the muscles of the larynx, tongue, and so on. But as far as the content of my message and the way of transmitting it are concerned, I cannot use procedural memory, unless it is a matter of saying a fixed sequence of sounds, or a poem learned by heart. The seemingly paradoxical thing is that the expression “think before you speak” is an easy task only when you have to think difficult things. When we have to multiply 43 × 13 we can think, saying, inside the head, something like: 43 × 10 makes 430, 43 × 3 makes 129, 430 plus 129 makes 559, and at the end give the answer: 559. But when should we tell a friend that we arrived late because the washing machine broke down at the last minute? Although I can be supported by semantic memory (I know that my new washing machine is broken), episodic memory (I remember the precise moment when I realized that it was not working because it was leaking water), these memories are not automatically thought in a linguistic form ready to be exported outside. They are rather an agglomeration of more or less nuanced images, of annoying sensations (the water that invades the floor), of patterns of things done (take a rag to dry), of swearing, and so on. In short, nothing like what happens in the case of the multiplication 43 × 13. To use a famous sentence attributed to the English novelist E.M.  Foster, one could say: “How do I know what I think if before I don’t see what I say? ” The fascinating phenomenon of the linguistic act, already highlighted by Victor Egger at the beginning of the twentieth century (Egger 1904), is that in most cases nobody knows exactly what he will say when he starts talking. The teacher who teaches, knows the subject, but certainly does not plan to pronounce his lessons sentence after sentence. The friend who tells of the last reunion between old schoolmates, remembers the faces, the jokes, the anecdotes, but in renewing this extraordinary event, does not decide first the words to use or how to put them in line, he simply knows what he wants to tell and tells it. The patients who tell the analyst about their vicissitudes may think they have nothing to say, but when they start talking, they put a few words in line, then—like cherries “one pulls the other”; a trivial thing can take a whole hour, and vice versa they may think they have a lot of things to tell and then say it all in a few minutes. How to explain all this? Assuming that speaking is an activity guided by procedural memory, assuming that even before starting to

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speak we have a vague idea of what we are going to say, how do we move from this idea to a story made of words and phrases, of rhetorical figures, composed in parts with an introduction, a problem event, a conclusion, a story perhaps ironic, allusive, veined with humor or a sense of tragedy? Edelman and Tononi observe that when we speak, we know broadly what we mean, although as a rule we do not know what words we are about to say. Fortunately, however, words seem to come out when we need them, in the right place and at the right time, with the right intonation of the case and the right meaning. In general, we do not have to consciously search for each word, nor do we have to pedestrianly check our syntax. If we were to do so, speaking would be a task at the limit of the impossible, an enormous burden on our conscious life, as has long been recognized (Edelman and Tononi 2000). This is the mysterious “jump” from memory to narration. And I am going to look at that now. It is useful to go back to the beginning of the first chapter, to the Proust laboratory. It is very instructive that the very greatest genius who dedicated his life to the search for his memories conducted it by writing a book of 3000 pages, as is In Search of Lost Time (Proust 1913–1927]). Published between 1913 and 1927, this work  is more than an autobiography, it is a psychological literary experiment to capture the past. A living experiment, as Proust has created his own laboratory of memories, isolated from the outside world to be able to better listen to and look at himself. Proust wrote by night and slept by day, but sometimes wrote early in the morning, and, especially in the last years of his life, he was always writing. In addition to his masterpieces, he has produced an incredible number of letters: Philip Kolb’s collection includes more than 20 volumes of correspondence. He wrote in the effort to be able to relive, through memory, the years of childhood and youth and to resume the form and color of the experience of the original events so that they returned even richer than when they had been lived the first time (Brockmeier 2015). One could say that Proust studied his memories through writing and not through silent meditation, through language and not just through the act of remembrance. The additions, reworkings, corrections, and deletions he made to his manuscript suggest that memory came to life from the act of writing. But how? In Search of Lost Time suggests that there might be an objective past that the author brings to light, a little like an archaeologist who must find the different layers of a city, albeit corrupted by time, moving from one layer to another. But the writing, which would allow these buried layers to come to light, is not comparable to that of a transmission belt that carries memories from the depths of long-term memory to the surface of the present told. Writing is rather a process that feeds on what you write and on re-reading what you write. A kind of virtuous circle is created by writing: remembering memories to be written which, while they are being written or immediately afterwards, bring out other memories to be written, etc. But in this way, in order to recover the memories lost through the language of writing, Proust undertook an impossible task, because each addition was not an approach to the “original memory” but to what he had written about memory, a

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memory therefore already modified by language or, in other words, a memory of childhood born and raised through adult language. In those same years when Proust was traveling into his past, another great character was working on something similar with different means. Interested in analyzing the memories of his own patients, their lost memories, determined to analyze himself since the death of his father, Sigmund Freud studied the psychic apparatus that was compared to an iceberg, for 9/10 was submerged below the level of consciousness. It can only be seen by studying phenomena such as dreams, lapses, parapraxia, symptoms, humor, and free associations. But dreams and lapses, etc., did not allow him to observe the unconscious “in its pure state,” because, to emerge, they had to go through the secondary processes. The unconscious could emerge but always remained a little hidden. The realization of desire, the primary function of the dream, had to deal with the defenses, and the interpretation of dreams became a difficult and laborious hermeneutical process that required further associations from the patient. It is therefore not wrong to say that in the Freudian formulation the primary process is only partially inspectable, precisely because it needs language, so much so that, when a patient relates a dream, he tends to make it translatable and communicable through transformations owing to the context of communication with the analyst. Once again it is through storytelling that memories are reached; free associations (that is, the act of narrating) produce memories which, in turn, produce free associations that still produce memories. However, the method of free associations works if conscious control over thoughts is loosened so as to lead to the emergence of unconscious ideo-affective content. One way to loosen conscious control is to let oneself go, talk without worrying about whether something should be said or not: it is important to say everything that comes to mind because, even if it is ugly or illogical, it could be important. But in order for a patient to be able to “let himself go” in the presence of another person, he or she has to trust him, and this is not easy, at least until a working relationship has been formed. This link between mental processes within the individual (transition from the unconscious to the conscious) and relational processes has been an absolutely extraordinary idea within the revolutionary ideas brought by Freud and he himself recognizes its importance in his own Selbstdarstellungen (Freud 1925; translated into English 1978), a sort of “self-exposure,” perhaps incorrectly translated as “autobiography.”1 In addition to a certain empathetic capacity toward the patient, partly refined through years of analytical training, the analyst makes use

1  On several occasions Freud began to reconstruct the history of psychoanalysis by combining it with that of his own life. On one of these occasions he told of how he had come to the construction of psychoanalytic theory from childhood to university and the profession. The word Selbstdarstellung expresses the meaning of putting one’s Self in public. The translation self-exposure is all too allusive to exposing oneself to a world that looks at us and judges us. And, if it is quite obvious that when one writes and publishes these works, one does it to be seen and judged, not all the works deserve the name Selbstdarstellung even if all, strictly speaking, are self-exposure.

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of particular techniques to facilitate the emergence of the material: a reassuring setting, the ability to wait, and the interpretation of the patient’s resistance and countertransference. But, despite the psychoanalytical work on resistance that allows the emergence of associations and despite their interpretation, the unconscious content cannot be observed directly, even when they are expressed in dreams (dreams must still be remembered and told), in parapraxia, in lapses, etc. They must pass through the preconscious, and therefore can only be observed as “pre-conscious” unconscious content. In the case of both Proust’s soundproofed bedroom and the Freudian cot, it is the act of writing or telling memories that makes the person in the past remember and thus become aware of them. However, with at least one difference: Proust wrote alone with the intention of publishing what he would have finished writing, the patient tells the analyst the memories he can produce through free associations that take shape thanks to the protection guaranteed by a setting, that is, by a relation à deux, between the patient and the analyst, founded on consensual rules.

Looking for a Connection The influence of Freud and psychoanalysis, and more generally the awareness of the existence of a “dynamic unconscious” seat of passions, and, in a sense, the truest and most authentic part of the person, has been extraordinary both in the scientific and artistic field. It is interesting to examine some important contributions that came from both literature and psychology in the first decades of the twentieth century because they have had a significant impact on the way we understand memory and on the relationship with autobiographical narrative.

Experimentation in Art Of course, art has always dealt with the inner life, but between 1800 and 1900 what attracted the attention of some artists was the possibility of representing in some way that inner experience that was recognized as specific and original thought, something not yet conditioned by social and linguistic conventions. Around the first decades of the twentieth century, important artistic movements such as surrealism, Dadaism, and, in Italy, futurism, also draw a foundation for their posters from psychoanalysis. In these movements, the notion of automatism, understood as a process that allows the influx of thoughts and affections to the consciousness without any control by rationality and social conventions, takes on particular importance. André Breton defined: Surrealism, masculine noun. Psychic automatism in its pure state, by which one proposes to express—verbally, by means of the written word, or in any other manner—the actual functioning of thought. Dictated by the thought, in the absence of any control exercised by reason, exempt from any aesthetic or moral concern. (Breton 1924; English edition 1971, 26).

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Automatic writing (Breton), automatic drawing (Masson, Dalì), and photographic automatism (Man Ray) are clear examples of this new form of artistic experimentation. These were Breton’s indications on how to produce automatic writing. After you have settled yourself in a place as favorable as possible to the concentration of your mind upon itself, have writing materials brought to you. Put yourself in as passive, or receptive, a state of mind as you can. Forget about your genius, your talents, and the talents of everyone else. Keep reminding yourself that literature is one of the saddest roads that leads to everything. Write quickly, without any preconceived subject, fast enough so that you will not remember what you are writing and be tempted to reread what you have written. The first sentence will come spontaneously, so compelling is the truth that with every passing second there is a sentence unknown to our consciousness which is only crying out to be heard. It is somewhat of a problem to form an opinion about the next sentence; it doubtless partakes both of our conscious activity and of the other, if one agrees that the fact of having written the first entails a minimum of perception. This should be of no importance to you; however, to a large extent, this is what is most interesting and intriguing about the Surrealist game. The fact still remains that punctuation no doubt resists the absolute continuity of the flow with which we are concerned, although it may seem as necessary as the arrangement of knots in a vibrating cord. Go on as long as you like. Put your trust in the inexhaustible nature of the murmur. If silence threatens to settle in if you should ever happen to make a mistake—a mistake, perhaps due to carelessness—break off without hesitation with an overly clear line. Following a word whose origin seems suspicious to you, place any letter whatsoever, the letter “l” for example, always the letter “l,” and bring the arbitrary back by making this letter the first of the following word (Breton 1924; English edition 1971, 26). At about the same time, James Joyce attempted a similar operation, albeit with other purposes and with other instruments. Ulysses is rightly considered one of the most important novels in twentieth century literature. In it Joyce uses a particular writing technique, called the inner monologue, deriving from the theory of the “flow of consciousness”.2 The protagonist’s thoughts flow as if they could be the recording not only of words but also of images, sensations, noises in the street, in short, of everything that the narrator sees, hears, and thinks at that moment. But how do we make all this in an organized space–time from left to right, from top to bottom, with a before and an after? How do we express contemporaneity or the intersection of different inner experiences? It is obviously impossible to translate without betraying the contemporary through diachronicity, disorder through order, what is vague and nuanced in the net discontinuity of words. We must look for other ways to express the succession of thoughts without a logical order, violating the rules of grammar, spelling, punctuation, and trying as much as possible to avoid the risk of complete incomprehensibility for the reader.

2  Before Joyce, Arthur Schnitzler had, in 1900, introduced the inner monologue into Austrian literature in Lieutenant Gustl. It was the same year that Freud published his Interpretation of Dreams.

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Here is an example from Ulysses: He kicked open the crazy door of the jakes. Better be careful not to get these trousers dirty for the funeral. He went in, bowing his head under the low lintel. Leaving the door ajar, amid the stench of mouldy limewash and stale cobwebs he undid his braces. Before sitting down he peered through a chink up at the nextdoor window. The king was in his countinghouse. Nobody. Asquat on the cuckstool he folded out his paper, turning its pages over on his bared knees. Something new and easy. No great hurry. Keep it a bit. Our prize titbit: Matcham’s Masterstroke. Written by Mr. Philip Beaufoy, Playgoers’ Club, London. Payment at the rate of one guinea a column has been made to the writer. Three and a half. Three pounds three. Three pounds, thirteen and six. Quietly he read, restraining himself, the first column and, yielding but resisting, began the second. Midway, his last resistance yielding, he allowed his bowels to ease themselves quietly as he read, reading still patiently that slight constipation of yesterday quite gone. Hope it’s not too big bring on piles again. No, just right. So. Ah! Costive. One tabloid of cascara sagrada. Life might be so. It did not move or touch him but it was something quick and neat. Print anything now. Silly season. He read on, seated calm above his own rising smell. Neat certainly. Matcham often thinks of the masterstroke by which he won the laughing Witch Who now. Begins and ends morally. Hand in hand. Smart. He glanced back through what he had read and, while feeling his water flow quietly, he envied kindly Mr. Beaufoy who had written it and received payment of three pounds, thirteen and six. (Joyce 1922)

As you can see, Joyce tries to express, through language, the experience of Leopold Bloom for whom, at that given moment of the day, reading and defecating are a composite activity made up of enteroceptive sensations, reflections on the newspaper article, noises, smells, uncertainty about whether to leave or hold back, elements that become mixed and perfectly interacting with each other, inner dialogues that take place simultaneously. But how to describe this contemporaneity? In an attempt to translate the “flow of consciousness” (psychological aspect) into words (verbalized inner monologue), language must try to express thoughts through free, random, and disordered associations, not subject to conscious control. Moreover, there is no narrator or author who takes the trouble to order this material, because the author’s intention is to allow the reader to take a look “inside” the mind of the character to watch the flow of his thoughts. In doing so, it is necessary to construct a new form of language regardless of the rules of comprehensibility. A language that seeks mediation between the contemporaneity with which the muscular movements necessary to defecate, read, walk, look out at the street occur, and the diachronicity of writing because the words to be written must be arranged on paper passing from one to the other according to an order of spatial and diachronic succession. The novel Ulysses, published in 1922, was written in part in Trieste, the city of Italo Svevo. The friendship between Joyce and Svevo was certainly very important, and undoubtedly also had an influence on the writer from Trieste. The works of the two authors are linked by the fact that they are placed in a certain cultural climate of the twentieth century that loves to explore in depth the subjective dimension of the person, which undermines the traditional vision of the world, closed, ordered, and hierarchical, replacing it with a more mobile and open vision. And all this also

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generates a crisis of structures and narrative processes. However, although Svevo was also interested in describing his own flow of consciousness, in his work the inner monologue is not expressed as in Joyce. It is Svevo himself who provides us with a possible interpretative key to this choice. In the Consciousness of Zeno the main character goes to the doctor for treatment of the vice of smoking: The doctor I spoke to told me to start my work with a historical analysis of my propensity to smoke: –– Write! Write! You’ll see how you get to see yourself as a whole. I think I can write on smoking here at my table without dreaming in that chair. I don’t know how to start and I invoke the assistance of cigarettes all so similar to the one I have in my hand (Svevo 1995, 5).

Zeno Cosini writes his thoughts so that he can related them to the psychoanalyst Dr. S., whereas the prose of Joyce is a literary experiment in which he tries to grasp without further transformation what happens inside. In fact the associations of Bloom in Ulysses are free associations, without control and censorship by the consciousness; those of Zeno, however, are subject to control, do not emerge immediately from the depths, because the Author-character while writing must sweeten and transform their inner flow to be able to tell and make it intelligible to the psychoanalyst.

Experiments in Psychology As well as in literary production, in those days, even in the still young psychological science, very important timed experiments took place. In fact, the innovations introduced by Joyce through the inner monologue were affected by the concept of “flow of consciousness” (stream of consciousness) that William James had talked about in his Principles of Psychology (1890). In the flow of consciousness, thought is not divided into parts but flows continuously and this flow is best described using the metaphor of the current of a river. One can obviously distinguish in the flow a before and an after, but this does not mean that it is broken down into a set of separate parts: these parts are actually different aspects of a dynamic unit. This is what happens in the phenomenon of chromatic contrast in visual perception: the same color, placed side by side with others, is perceived as different because in reality we do experience not so much individual distinct sensations as complex contexts of experience subject to continuous change. James observes that, despite the discontinuity of things: The confusion is between the thoughts themselves, taken as subjective facts, and the things of which they are aware. It is natural to make this confusion, but easy to avoid it when once put on one’s guard. The things are discrete and discontinuous; they do pass before us in a train or chain, making often explosive appearances and rending each other in twain. But their comings and goings and contrasts no more break the flow of the thought that thinks them than they break the time and the space in which they lie. A silence may be broken by a thunder-clap, and we may be so stunned and confused for a moment by the shock as to

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3  From Autobiographical Memory to Autobiographical Narrative give no instant account to ourselves of what has happened. But that very confusion is a mental state, and a state that passes us straight over from the silence to the sound. The transition between the thought of one object and the thought of another is no more a break in the thought than a joint in a bamboo is a break in the wood. It is a part of the consciousness as much as the joint is a part of the bamboo. The superficial introspective view is the overlooking, even when the things are contrasted with each other most violently, of the large amount of affinity that may still remain between the thoughts by whose means they are cognized. Into the awareness of the thunder itself the awareness of the previous silence creeps and continues; for what we hear when the thunder crashes is not thunder pure, but thunder-breaking-upon-silence-and contrasting-­ with-­it (James 1890, 240).

The notion of the current of consciousness implies that every thought that is continuously mute comes to be part of a personal consciousness, is always linked to “objects” that are independent of it, takes an interest in some aspects of these objects to the exclusion of others; in short, chooses among them continuously. The fundamental character of consciousness is, according to James, complexity. This complexity is represented using the concept of fringe. This concept, similar to that of perceptive or attentive field, indicates that when a person listens to another person speaking, he not only hears his voice, but, at the same time, he also has feelings caused by his face, by his dress, by how he moves, etc. In this area of different sensations there is a central part where attention is concentrated and a peripheral part. The change in interest can then change the center and the periphery of the fringe and then what is central in one state can become peripheral in another. This means that the flow of consciousness does not concern data that are all located at the same level of awareness, because this flow also includes ideas or sensations of which we are only partially aware. Thought is always the “thought of something,” the continuity of thought is rooted in certain referents—objects A, B, C, D—each of which has a fringe, a halo that makes each referent-object blurred and superimposed on the others. But, at the moment when the person wants to verbally report his or her own flow of consciousness, he or she will be forced to use language that will make linear, discontinuous, and broken into words what was within a synchronous, continuous, and parallel time. The notion of a certain discontinuity between inner life, as it is perceived by thought and as it is expressed and understood through language, was recognized by scholars who lived at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Victor Egger in La parole intérieure (1904) had made enlightening reflections on the inner word with respect to the outer one, highlighting its differences in terms of the dimensions of weakness–force, rapidity–slowness, syntheses–articulation, personal–social, and then came to affirm: The inner language  is our own thing; we use it to our imagination, it is more suited to our thinking, it is more in keeping with our mood. It can be largely personal which is not possible to the verbal language which is essentially a social instrument. This is why we find it difficult to explain to others our feelings or ideas that are familiar to us but which we are not used to expressing in terms that only make sense to us. We are able to think our feelings and ideas but if we wanted to confide them to a friend we would have to translate them into everyone’s language. (Egger 1904, 71).

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However, it was Lev Vygotskij who was able to formalize what Egger himself, James, Bergson, Joyce, Proust, and the artistic revolutions of the early twentieth century had worked so hard on. In his masterpiece Thought and Language (1934; translated into English 2001) the great Russian psychologist writes: Thought, unlike speech, does not consist of separate units. When I wish to communicate the thought that today I saw a barefoot boy in a blue shirt running down the street, I do not see every item separately: the boy, the shirt, its blue color, his running, the absence of shoes. I conceive of all this in one thought, but I put it into separate words. A speaker often takes several minutes to disclose one thought. In his mind the whole thought is present at once, but in speech it has to be developed successively. A thought may be compared to a cloud shedding a shower of words. Precisely because thought does not have its automatic counterpart in words, the transition from thought to word leads through meaning. In our speech, there is always the hidden thought, the subtext. Because a direct transition from thought to word is impossible, there have always been laments about the inexpressibility of thought (Vygotskij 1934, 251).

Experience teaches us—says Vygotskij—that thought is not expressed in words but rather is realized in them. Thought is born from the inside and language from the outside, thought then progressively becomes verbal by externalizing and language becomes rational by internalizing. But during this process, when the verbalized language, externalized and directed toward the other returns thought, returns as an internalized language, a language that is then no longer the same as before being externalized because it is enriched by the fact of having been transformed into social language. In this way, two types of language are formed: one that is directed toward the Self, easily manipulated, but syncretic and implicit, and the other that is directed toward the Other, much more laborious, but articulated and explicit. The main characteristics of these two forms of language are schematically represented in Table 3.1. The “language for the self” is the result of the internalization of social language and is presented as a poorly vocalized language, mixed with other inner representations made by images, sounds or patterns. It is therefore a little articulated process from a phonemic and syntactic point of view, rather syncretic, condensed, and rich in implications. It is predictive because it is concentrated on the predicate of the sentence implying the subject. Its semantics is the sense and it goes from whole to Table 3.1  Inner language and outer language in Vygotskian theory Language directed to the Self Volatilization of language Implicit context Syncretism Poverty and phonetic–syntactic fragmentation Prevalence of sense over meaning Use of predicate Condensation Prevalence of semantics over phonetics

Language directed to the Other Materialization of language Explicit context Organization Syntactic–phonetic richness Prevalence of meaning over sense Use of the subject Articulation Prevalence of phonetics over semantics

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part. However, thanks to these “limits,” it finds in the scarcity of rules the reason for its dynamism and instability. And this mobility translates into speed of action, agility in joining ideas and elements on the basis of even simple and sometimes vague similarities. As a language directed to the Self or self-centered, it does not need to demonstrate, to make explicit, to guarantee a logical link between individual passages of its “reasoning”, but it can easily jump to conclusions. On the contrary, “language for others” is a language that, precisely because it has maintained all its phonological prerogatives, is articulated and semantically more oriented to meanings and goes from the part to the whole. Its syntax and the ways of its communication tend to make explicit what otherwise would be known only by the subject. Vygotskij highlights well how one can switch from one language to another: It is evident that transition from inner speech to external speech is not a simple translation from one language into another. It cannot be achieved by merely vocalizing silent speech. It is a complex, dynamic process involving the transformation of predicative idiomatic structure of inner speech into syntactically articulated speech intelligible to others (Vygotskij 1934, 248).

Vygotskij’s hypothesis is therefore that verbal thought is formed at the moment when one speaks and is not simply the good dress with which one leaves the house. In short, on the one hand, these two ways are distant from each other, but on the other hand this distance seems to be shortened by the continuous process of exteriorization and internalization. At the same time as Vygotsky conducted his studies in Bolshevik Russia amidst undisputed personal tribulations (he was not fully rehabilitated until 1956), in Cambridge in the 1930s, Bartlett carried out other pioneering experiments on thought and memory. In his 1932 paper, Remembering he shows how memory is guided by processes of schematization. These processes manifest in various ways and are present in both individual and group behavior. In some of his experiments, which have rightly remained famous, Bartlett uses (among other things) a story from a Native American tale, War of the Ghosts. This choice was made because Bartlett wanted the story to belong to a cultural environment unrelated to the participants in his experiments so that they could not use their previous knowledge about that story or others similar to it. In an experiment, the individual had to read the story and then recall it to the experimenter several times at varying distances of time. In another experiment the story was used in a different way: participant A read the story and then had to tell it to participant B, who told it to C, and so on. The interval between reproductions was about half an hour. Bartlett’s analysis of these reproductions brought to light some very interesting trends. In the experiment, in which he was the same person who had to recall the same story, after a certain number of times in the reproduction personal elements were inserted or were invented or kept unusual and bizarre details. However, there was also another, more interesting phenomenon. Stories tended to be conventionalized, assuming a stereotyped format; they rationalized, becoming more consistent with a greater internal organization. In other words, it seemed as if the narrators, faced with a story that was foreign to their own culture, were trying to include it in a type of history that was culturally known.

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In the experiment in which the reproduction took place from one participant to another, a similar phenomenon was observed: after a certain number of passages the stories stopped changing, as it is logical to expect in the re-enactment, but they stabilized, became more coherent, and the omissions and inventions of details were functional to the maintenance of the general sense, to the simplification, to the order, and to the rationalization (Bartlett 1932). The extraordinary importance of these experiments lies in having anticipated what was to become the cognitive revolution of the 1950s, highlighting the existence of preconditions that were both personal and cultural and that guided the process of remembrance. Bartlett’s experiments have paved the way for the study of stories and memories of stories and, above all, for the concept of a scheme. With Bartlett, therefore, the scientific awareness emerges that the internal world is, at least in part, the result of a process of reconstruction and predispositions to action, perception, memory, and understanding. These predispositions are guided by interests and, what is particularly important to note, by imagination. Here, too, it is better to leave the floor to the author himself: Remembering is not the re-excitation of innumerable fixed, lifeless and fragmentary traces. It is an imaginative reconstruction or construction, built out of the relation of our attitude towards a whole active mass of organised past reactions or experience, and to a little outstanding detail which commonly appears in image or in language form. It is thus hardly ever really exact, even in the most rudimentary cases of rote recapitulation. The attitude is literally an effect of the organism’s capacity to turn round upon its own ‘schemata’, and is directly a function of consciousness. The outstanding detail is the result of that valuation of items in an organised mass which begins with the functioning of appetite and instinct, and goes much further with the growth of interests and ideals. (Bartlett 1932, 213)

Conclusion The artistic and scientific experimentation at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries has helped to offer a new way of considering the relationship between thought and language, between memory and narrative. Aware of the rocky step that marks the discontinuity between the two worlds, these pioneers tried to find a way to tap into the inner world using tools such as the inner monolog, automatic writing, free associations, oral storytelling or even just writing in a soundproof room. The main result of this experimentation was the idea that memory is not an archive but a constructive process of expectations and anticipation. When the person tries to translate its memories verbally, it follows mnestic traces that are inseparable from interests, imagination, the need to give meaning, to give coherence to what it remembers, from other occasions when that memory has been remembered and told. Remembering, therefore, does not happen only through a process that is entirely internal to the mind, because sometimes it unfolds along concrete acts, such as writing or speaking. What is it to tell a memory if not a way to remember it and communicate it to someone? And what more will this narrative bring than the original memory?

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The contributions made by Lev Semënovič Vygotskij and Frederic Charles Bartlett were fundamental in this respect. The first highlighted the differences and relationships between thought and language. These relationships not only concern a movement from inside to outside (from thought to language) but also from outside to inside (from language to thought). Between the two directions there is a circularity that allows us to develop a process that potentially increases more and more, as we see better in the next chapter. As for Bartlett, he has shown how deeply constructive remembering is, and particularly so when remembering is through storytelling. Narrating is not an activity separated from the cultural forms of stories. There are narrative models, obviously easier  to use, which also become models for remembering. Finally, returning to the bedroom in Boulevard Haussmann illustrates not only how it is important to remember writing (and telling in general), but also how this remembering is a process related to purposes, because, for example in the case of Proust, remembering and writing, even if they had a cognitive intent, were still intended for publication and the search for beauty, and not only to find their memories with the microscope as if they were tiny cells of memory.

References Bartlett, F. C. (1932). Remembering: an experimental and social study. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Breton, A. (1924). Manifeste du Surréalisme. Paris: Editions du Sagittaire. English translation: Breton, A. (1969) Manifestoes of Surrealism, transl. Seaver, R., Lane, HR. Ann Arbor Paperbacks The University Michigan Press. Brockmeier, J. (2015). Beyond the archive. Memory, narrative, and the autobiographical process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Edelman, G. M., & Tononi, G. (2000). Universe of consciousness. How matter becomes imagination. New York: Basic Books. Egger, V. (1904). La parole intérieure: essai de psychologie descriptive. Paris: Felix Alcan. Freud, S. (1925). Selbstdarstellung. In L.R.  Grote (Ed.), Der Medizin der Gegenwart in Selbstdarstellungen. Leipzig: Felix Meiner, 4, 1–52. English Edition: Freud, S. (1935). An autobiographical study. L. and Virginia Woolf London: Hogarth Press and Institute of Psychoanalysis. Goffman, E. (1956). Presentation of self in everyday life. Edinburgh: University of Edinburgh. James, W. (1890). The principles of psychology. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Joyce, J. (1922). Ulysses. London: Bodley Head. Proust, M. (1913–1927). À la recherche du temps perdu. Paris: Bernard Grasset and Gallimard. English edition: Proust, M. (2003). In search of lost time. Translated by C.K. Scott Moncrieff, Andreas Mayor, Terence Kilmartin, D.J. Enright. New York: Modern Library. Svevo, I. (1995). La coscienza di Zeno. Santarcangelo di Romagna: I Giganti di Gulliver. English edition: Svevo, Italo. Zeno’s conscience. Translated by William Weaver. New York: Vintage International (2001). Vygotsky, L.  S. (1934) Myshlenie i rech, Socekgiz. Moskva-Leningrad. English translation: Vygosky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT.

Chapter 4

Autobiographical Narrative

The Heaviness of Voice

Fig. 4.1  The singer of Chungai: rock art of central Tanzania (Chungai site 3, 8000 B.C.–1500 A.D.)

The Figure  4.1 presents  a rock painting found at the site of Chungai in central Tanzania and published in the book by the English archaeologist Mary Leakey (1983), presents a stylized human figure with small arms, disproportionate to the other parts of the body, long legs, and a large head. This tall figure, drawn in red with headgear, has a series of six dashed lines that seem to come out of her mouth. These lines are similar to those that fall from the end of the flute in another rock representation, that of the Bushman musician known as pan player and found in South Africa. Here, too, we find the same technique of dashed lines that is therefore used by both artists in Tanzania and Bushmen to paint the human voice or the sound of a flute (Leakey 1983, 90, 122) (Fig. 4.1). © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_4

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I have always been struck by the care with which the head of this representation, called the “singer of Chungai,” is characterized and what seems to come out of it. I mean the attention the artist wanted to fill it with many small strokes that are assembled together in an almost circular form, some arranged horizontally, others vertically, still others obliquely with respect to the figure. Overall, they seem to be drawn in a disorderly manner, but in any case in such a way as to respect the circular shape of the skull, which is thus completely filled, leaving no room for the other attributes of the face. Similar to these are the ones that come out of the head. However, these are drawn in parallel rows and placed one after the other, representing a succession downward. Although the strokes inside the head make one think of the contemporaneity of a disorderly movement, those that come out suggest the idea of diachronicity, of a before and an after, according to a pre-established order. It seems interesting that the sound waves emitted by the mouth or through the flute are represented because they refer to entities that are not seen but only heard. It is therefore a visual representation of sound and the commentary of the author at the end of her book and after comparing the paintings of Tanzania with those of the Bushmen at the foot of the Drakensberg Mountains in South Africa, is that in painting artists do not imitate nature but select the elements, transposing them into basic models that they repeat from time to time. In this case in the representation of a voice or a sound, the pictorial style emphasizes succession and movement, and, as you can see here, heaviness because the strokes seem seem to be falling down, attracted by the ground. This chapter begins with an image so poor but so evocative that it synthesizes, as images do, a more articulated process that concerns the passage from the internal world to the external reality and the role that in this passage is played by the language, the voice, and the sound, which have a nature that is at the same time heavy and light. My aim is to highlight the transformations that autobiographical memory undergoes when it becomes autobiographical narrative, transformations that may be at the basis of that mysterious leap discussed in the previous chapter. I begin with transformations from memory to voice and then move on to examine other transformations that lead us to the autobiographical narrative.

Memory Becomes Voice Antonio Damasio (1994), with The Error of Descartes a couple of decades ago, re-­ proposed his criticism of the Cartesian mind–body distinction and the separation between passion and reason. In the light of neuroscience and in particular through his theory of somatic markers, Damasio wanted to demonstrate that the body is the basis for the recognition and assignment of meaning to passions, that these could not be understood without the body, that reasoning could not take place without their contribution. However, the “mind–body” dichotomy seems to reappear when we examine the relationship between thought and language. According to Descartes, language has a dual nature. In terms of meaning, it is res cogitans but on a phonetic level it is res extensa. (Descartes 1637, 1644, 1649; Spallanzani 2015). Thought—res cogitans—can

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be transformed into language and produce comprehensible meanings thanks to its phonetic support made of sound waves, i.e., becoming res extensa. Not only that, Descartes also seems to realize how the language we use, made of spoken or written words, is able to influence thoughts and emotions. He writes: In the next place it can be proved that our mind is of such a nature that the motions of the body alone are sufficient to excite in it all sorts of thought without it being necessary that these should in any way resemble the motions which give rise to them and especially that these motions can excite in it those confused thoughts called sensations (sensus, sensationes). For we see that words, whether uttered by the voice or merely written, excite in our minds all kinds of thoughts and emotions. On the same paper and the same pen and ink by merely moving the point of the pen over the paper in a particular way we can trace letters that will raise in the minds of our readers the thoughts of combats, tempest of the furies and the passion of indignation and sorrow; in place of which, if the pen is moved in another way hardly different from the former, this slight change of thoughts widely different from above such as those of repose, peace, pleasantness, and the quite opposite passions of love and joy. (Descartes 1644; CXCVII).

It is extraordinary how Descartes, as early as the seventeenth century, had sensed how the medium (voice or writing) was able to change the flow of thought and its ideas. Thought is formed as soon as it is produced and according to the medium used to produce it, because the same “pen tip on paper” conditions its development. This double nature of language has been recognized by de Saussure (1962) who considered phonology to be the physiology of sound, which was the basis of the acoustic image, which in turn was the signifier in opposition to the meaning, which is represented by the concept. Even Chomsky (1966), in his Cartesian Linguistics, makes a similar distinction. Recovering the distinction made by Cordemoy and the grammars of Port-Royal, Chomsky speaks, with regard to language, of a superficial structure (sequence of sounds) and a deep structure (meaning). The first has to do with the physical world and is studied by phonetics, the second with the mental world and has to do with semantics. The deep structure concerns the way in which the mind works and therefore has a more universal character, whereas the superficial one depends on the individual languages. This is the point that, in my opinion, must be kept firm when we study the relationship between memory and narration or between thought and language. In fact, it is not a question of re-proposing the dichotomy between res cogitans and res extensa. Based on actions, thought and body there is always a nervous system made up of cells and cell connections. But, from the point of view of the product that the brain creates, one thing is the sign, another is the meaning. In speaking, man creates signs, i.e., strings of phonemes (words) with extensiveness. These signs serve to convey meaning to others and to oneself. The extensiveness of the sign has constraints that thought does not have. These constraints are imposed by the physical world from many points of view: the way in which the phonatory apparatus is structured in humans, the way in which it is used, the same physical laws of time and space. Think, for example, of the way in which language is articulated. The emission of the sign through the voice occurs through the air that comes from the lungs, and that is pushed in the direction of the trachea and the larynx. The activity of the diaphragm and chest muscles gives sufficient impetus to vibrate the vocal cords, which

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gives pressure oscillations to the exhaled air. The result of the cycle of opening and closing the glottis is the release of small puffs of the subglottic air column that form sound waves. It is up to the resonator apparatus formed by the pharynx, the oral cavity, the nasal pits, to give the simple and inarticulate laryngeal sounds the specific characteristics of timbre and color for the production of the actual language (De Filippis 2004). To say that thought is translated into verbal language means that it is expressed through a physical medium or, to use a Cartesian expression, a res extensa. But from res cogitans to res extensa there is a leap that can only be closed by the human intentionality that is at the base of the communicative act and that includes the will to speak, the management of the phonatory apparatus, the learning of the use of signs (phonemes) and of the social rules of their transmission.1 All this has important consequences for the reflection we are conducting, because in language thought and memory are transformed into sound waves (res extensa) and acquire those constraints linked precisely to the fact of being “physical things,” such as depending on breathing, vocal articulation, etc. With the modulation of the voice, the human person becomes part of his own culture at the linguistic level. This has been documented by studies on language development when, from the second or third month of life, the child begins to emit the first vocalizations (cooing, babbling), establishing a real form of dialogue with the mother. At birth, the baby has the potential to speak all languages, but it is thanks to these first forms of dialogue that it can tune in to the sounds that are emitted in its family. This leads to a transformation of synaptic connections because those connections that are foreign to the linguistic uses of the environment in which the child lives are “pruned” (Eimas et al. 1971). Language, moreover, on the lexical level, is necessarily organized in a linearized way, that is, it is made up of successions of sounds, but, above all, of syllables and words. You cannot pronounce the words “mom” and “ball” at the same time. This means that any reality report must involve a choice, even if, in most cases, it is not conscious. A choice that can be linked to the grammatical rules of the language, to what you mean, or to other things. The necessary use of diachronicity and the use of (implicit) cultural rules to emit signs and systems of signs are two first important transformations between internal mental states (thought, emotions, memories) and language. They are followed by others. Ever since Bartlett’s works, telling a memory has been considered a rather different matter from simply remembering. Memory, when narrated, must obey not 1  G.B. Vico had arrived at a very similar vision considering how the mind and the body find their point of contact in an incorporated linguistic faculty, “being man, properly, that mind, body and speech, and speech being placed between the mind and the body” (Vico 1744, 666). Thus, favella (language) represents the starting point for a rethinking of the nature of man that abandons the old dualisms, that omits the problematic relationship between mind and body, and that captures the specific nature of man in the linguistic element. This new linguistic res is not only language in the sense of articulated language but it is also a contemporary visual language—composed of real words and realized through acts, hints and gestures—in which the fantastic aspect and the corporeal element play a predominant role.

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only the grammatical, lexical, and syntactical constraints and rules of the language it belongs to, but must also assume the specific format of a story (Smorti 2011). This story takes on those properties highlighted by Bruner (1986, 1990, 2003) that give memories an understandable, chronological, and causal structure of events. After the transformation into voice and then into language and history, there is then a fourth transformation that meets the autobiographical memory, that of becoming a specific narrative genre.

Memory Becomes Autobiographical Narrative We have said that autobiographical memory contributes substantially to building the sense of self of the individual and his or her identity. We can now say that it can do this thanks to the fact that the autobiographical narrative provides, so to speak, the necessary building blocks for the person to elaborate their own life story (Habermas and Bluck 2000; McLean et al. 2007). Not only that, but it also favors, in some way, the fact that these stories are constructed in a coherent way and at least in part understandable and shareable (McAdams 2001; McAdams et al. 2006). Thanks to the structure of the story, the memory told becomes something different, more articulated and organized. Without the narrative, it would not be possible to build a life story that goes beyond the schematic and unorganized awareness of what happened. As autobiographical memory, when told, becomes the narration of an autobiographical memory and therefore autobiographical narration, it is useful to consider the autobiographical genre first. In fact, under the label of autobiographical narration, at least two different narrative constructions can be included: autobiography and the narration of autobiographical episodes.

Autobiography Although the word autobiography appeared for the first time in Germany and England in the eighteenth century (Brockmeier 2015), autobiography as a genre has a history that starts from far away and has boundaries so blurred that it is not easily distinguishable from other genres, such as confessions, memoirs, historiography, bildungsroman, diary, travel journal, and letters. In a broad sense, autobiography is a work in which the narrator writes about his own life, making himself or herself the protagonist of the story. If we examine this form of writing from some examples of “noble” narratives, as we have called them, we can discover many interesting and useful things to understand the relationship between autobiographical memory and autobiographical narrative. Dante, for example, had been writing Vita Nova since 1290, the year of Beatrice’s death, in prosimetrum, a literary genre in which prose and verses are alternated: prose is used to tell facts, poetry to express feelings. The chapters in prose represent,

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in Vita Nova, both the actual narration of the facts and the explanation of the lyrical compositions. The lyrics were chosen from those that Dante had composed (from 1283) in honor of various female figures and, above all, for the same Beatrice; later the parts were composed in prose. In Vita Nova, Dante develops the concept (implicit but literally correct) of autobiography as “writing the book of one’s own memories.” But this writing is not aimed at reconstructing reality in every detail, but in an overall vision as to enunciate a theory on life worthy of being communicated to others. In that part of the book of my memory, before which little can be read, there is a heading which says: Incipit vita nova: here begins the new life. Under that heading I find written the words that it is my intention to copy into this little book: and if not all, at least their essence (Alighieri, 1292-1294, English Transation, 2001).

Dante does not limit himself to a simple transcription of the words marked in the book of memory: the memories, in fact, will undergo a process of selection (and for this reason not all will be present) and interpretation a posteriori, which allows us to clarify their profound meaning (sentencing). The story told is therefore drawn from Dante’s memory (“In that part of the book of my memory … ”); this story has to do with the spiritual renewal in Dante’s existence (“Incipit vita nova”) determined by love for Beatrice; Dante’s memories are metaphorically indicated as a text (the “book of my memory”). From here a system of metaphors starts (the “column” placed on the first pages; the “words” that the narrator intends to “assemble”), all semantically connected with that of the book. The work that Dante is about to write will in turn be a book (“booklet”), which will have to make a selection from among the materials of the book of memory and provide an interpretation (“sentences”; for this discussion, see also Tonelli 2010). But before Dante, with his Confessions, St. Augustine’s autobiography, written around 400 A.D., had already turned out to be a “nova vita” in which the narrator proposes to carry out a sort of transformation of himself: he confesses something he has not yet said and of which he bears a burden, and, by confessing it, tries to transform the “old” Self into a “new” Self. Confession is “confessio peccatorum” (confession of sins), but also “laus dei” (praise of God) and “confessio fidei” (profession of faith). It is truly an act of conversion (Zambrano 1995). The autobiography is also based on a sort of assumption of truth. The writer who tells us about himself makes an autobiographical pact with the reader, ensuring that he will tell the truth. At the beginning of the first book of his confessions, Rousseau writes: I am resolved on an undertaking that has no model and will have no imitator. I want to show my fellow men a man in all the truth of nature and this man is to be myself. (Rousseau 1782–1789; English transl. 2000, 5).

However, such a clear and explicit wording is rare because such statements are usually implicit. The author claims to tell the truth and nothing but the truth and asks to be believed. In this sense, autobiography as a genre differs from the autobiographical novel (Lejeune 1971, 1975). In his autobiography, the author enters into an autobiographical pact with the reader, committing himself to tell his life (or a part

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or an aspect of it) directly in the spirit of the truth. For this reason, the autobiographical pact presupposes an identity between the author and the character of the text. The autobiographical pact opposes the fiction pact. Whoever proposes a novel (even if it is inspired by his or her life) does not ask readers to really believe what he or she is telling them, but simply to pretend to believe it. The autobiographer, on the other hand, swears that what he/she is about to say to his readers is true, or, at least, it is what he believes to be true. He acts like a historian or a journalist, with the difference that the subject on which he swears to give true information is himself. As Lejeune says, if the reader has the feeling that the autobiographer hides or alters a part of the truth, he has the right to think that he lies. On the contrary, it is impossible to say that a novelist is lying: it makes no sense, because he has not committed himself to telling the truth. What he tells is likely or unlikely, coherent or inconsistent, good or bad, etc., but this has nothing to do with the distinction between true and false (for these relationships between the autobiography and the novel see also Lessing 2004). There is also a further assumption within the autobiographical construction. The narrator anticipates the meaning of what he will tell. Rousseau himself declares that he will do something unique of its kind that will remain for posterity. At the same time, however, he is in the present and, in order to assign this meaning, he must reconsider the past from the position in which he finds himself when he writes. Even if at the end of his autobiographical writing the narrator arrives at some new form of awareness that may lead him to reformulate the assumptions that had guided the writing of his work, this discovery will be inserted in the prologue or at the beginning of the work, “as if” it really was already present before starting to write. In this way, the assumption about one’s life becomes a teleological narrative expedient, whereas the creative psychological process (the construction of autobiography) is causal and retrospective (Brockmeier 2015). If we attempt to glean the stories of the lives of famous people we very often find this assumption. The Historia calimatatum mearum (History of My Misfortunes) by Pietro Abelardo is a collection of letters written to a friend and letters between Abelard and Eloise. In this extraordinarily modern work (especially if we take into account the date: around 1130) with regard to the feelings expressed, certainly not angelic but no less profound in love and devotion, Abelard tells the story of his life, including his love for Eloise, his passion for philosophy and theology, his teaching, and his disputes. From the first page of the story, told in the format of a letter to a friend, Abelard traces a theory of his own life. Know, then, that I am come from a certain town which was built on the way into lesser Brittany, distant some eight miles, as I think, eastward from the city of Nantes, and in its own tongue called Palets. Such is the nature of that country, or, it may be, of them who dwell there—for in truth they are quick in fancy—that my mind bent itself easily to the study of letters. Yet more, I had a father who had won some smattering of letters before he had girded on the soldier’s belt. And so it came about that long afterwards his love thereof was so strong that he saw to it that each son of his should be taught in letters even earlier than in the management of arms. Thus indeed did it come to pass. And because I was his first born, and for that reason the more dear to him, he sought with double diligence to have

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4  Autobiographical Narrative me wisely taught. For my part, the more I went forward in the study of letters, and ever more easily, the greater became the ardour of my devotion to them, until in truth I was so enthralled by my passion for learning that, gladly leaving to my brothers the pomp of glory in arms, the right of heritage and all the honours that should have been mine as the eldest born, I fled utterly from the court of Mars that I might win learning in the bosom of Minerva. And—since I found the armory of logical reasoning more to my liking than the other forms of philosophy, I exchanged all other weapons for these, and to the prizes of victory in war I preferred the battle of minds in disputation. (Abelard, Historia calimitatum mearum; English translation 1922, 1).

In this way, Abelard understands in such a psychoanalytically modern way his own conflict between identification with his father and his own identity, between what his father had thought of for him—the art of war—and his own philosophical passion, and he reaches a compromise, choosing dialectics as the philosophy of warfare. However, this understanding is not placed at the end of his story but at the beginning, as if he were already aware of it before starting the story. Many centuries later, Vico began his autobiography with an accident as a child on which his melancholic and reflective character depended. In the Life of Giambattista Vico written by himself (1725–1728), written at about 55 years of age in the third person, we find a sort of initial theory: at 7 years old he fell down the stairs causing a serious injury to his head that left his life in danger for many days. Thanks to the “mercy of God” he was cured. But as a result of this mischance he grew up with a melancholy and irritable temperament such as belongs to men of ingenuity and depth who thanks to the one are quick as lightning in perception, and thanks to the other, take no pleasure in the verbal cleverness of falsehood (Vico,1725-1728, 1965, p. 3).

Further examples taken from illustrious autobiographies such as those of Vittorio Alfieri, Ippolito Nievo, Georges Simenon, and others provided by Mezzanzanica (2007), are in the same vein and testify how autobiographical writing is a circular process. The person writes about himself by reconstructing his own memories, but only when he has finished writing will he be able to understand the regulating mechanism of his own life. This mechanism, although extracted from the story of his memories “after,” is placed “before” as a premise to be validated through the story. Bruner (1990) has proposed the following definition of autobiography that allows us to reformulate this circularity through two opposing temporal paths: “A story made by a narrator here and now about a protagonist who bears his name and who existed there and then, and that ends in the present where the protagonist is confused with the narrator” In short, the author writes and modifies his own text, subjecting it to a cleaning job done on the way and post hoc modifying the “reconstruction of facts.” But this is not an easy task, because if the author reaches a new and more complete form of awareness only at the end of the story of his life, he must be able to gradually attribute this awareness to the protagonist of his story. Therefore, he finds himself needing to “rewrite” his life at least a second time after having reached the final awareness. In short, the autobiographical author has a self-consciousness that becomes increasingly complex through writing and this obliges him to arrange the

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facts of his life in such a way as to be a testimony or demonstration of what we could call with a modern expression a “theory of the Self.”

Autobiographical Episodes The autobiography reveals a strong rhetorical attitude as if it had to explain why it was necessary (not causally but morally, socially, and psychologically) that the life of the leading narrator had ended in that particular way. Having said that, we have to admit that autobiographies are rare. In everyday life people need to tell personal stories by referring to the various moments of their lives without the need to reconnect them together in a single story, to extend them to the present and to show how the storyteller has become what he is now. Even when the expression “life story” is used this does not necessarily mean the story of one’s own whole life but rather a set of stories about one’s own life, perhaps held together by a general scheme. What we usually hear from others, and build ourselves, are narrative episodes, sometimes “small narratives,” as Bamberg and Georgakopoulou have defined them (2008). Although perhaps of little relevance in content, the small daily narratives are those that help to keep alive the network of relationships, because people can communicate a small amount of information by baring personal reactions or emotional states, strengthening or weakening ties with others in a story of confirmations, misunderstandings, and reconciliations. It is an incessant weaving of dialogues in the course of which we may not say anything important either, but, because of the way we say it, and because of the words and emotions that we transmit, we cannot do without this fabric, because it is the ground on which we walk daily and that makes our life of relationships possible. If we look at phrases like “I’ll take the car to the mechanic,” “nobody ever tidies the dishes in this house,” “this vase has always been here,” “where did you put the newspaper?,” we find that not all of them meet the requirements of a well-formed story. On the contrary, some of them are not even a story, even though, because of the way in which they can be pronounced, because of the context in which they occur, they can constitute key phrases and prerequisites for the construction of much more articulated stories and bearers of more relevant content. The way in which the narration of an autobiographical episode begins must also be taken into account, that is, whether it is driven by the narrator’s need to narrate, perhaps stimulated by a particular event, or by another story, or whether it is a response to a request to narrate. In the first case, the need to tell an informative, interesting, and credible story is absolutely central. But this doesn’t always happen in other cases. When, for example, the judge asks the defendant: “What did you do on Tuesday, June 3 from 10:30 to 12:30?” or again the doctor asks the patient: “How do you spend the day? Do you do exercise?” In these cases, we do not have to respect the principle of recountability but only of credibility. Some stories do not have a problem to solve. Those are what I called “no problem stories” (Smorti 2004). Let us take the defendant’s account of how he spent his time on 3 June from

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10:30 to 12:30: “At 10:30 I went to the bar with friends where we played darts until 12:00, then I went home where I stayed all day.” If inserted within the plot of a detective story this report can have a very important narrative function. However, taken in and of itself, it describes specific events that include characters, actions, maybe even moods, but totally free of unexpected events, a description of a regular flow of events. Another example may be the story made by the patient in response to a question from the doctor to explore his habits: “in the morning I do some shopping, I cook, I eat, I take a nap, in the afternoon I go out a little to walk the dog, I see some friends and in the evening I stay at home watching TV.” This is a typical description of a typical day, a sort of script, which more or less contains generic actions, generic memories, more semantic than episodic. These stories are not real narratives, even if they could be the starting point (let us imagine, for example, if a sudden illness were inserted into the typical day). They seem to be bound by respect for truth and facts and ask the narrator for an accurate use of his own autobiographical memory. They do not have a problem to solve, but rather the purpose of drawing up a history of facts that may be useful at a later date. In short, stories without problems or small narratives may or may not be part of a larger narrative and assume a not insignificant importance within the plot of a story. Within a given time unit, there may be script, small narratives, stories without problems, but also philosophical reflections and narratives of an autobiographical, legal genre, etc. This makes it difficult to determine whether or not a certain type of text is a story because it depends on the broader or less broad context in which we place it. It is therefore necessary to define the unit of time considered in order to establish the meaning and relevance of an autobiographical episode. There are of course narrative episodes that have a real structure of history. This often happens when the person has something unexpected to tell, a problem that you want to tell and that you think may interest the storyteller. These narrative episodes have a “Labovian” structure. They are composed of a sort of initial abstract, an introduction, a main event and a finale, often followed by a coda that serves to conclude (Labov and Waletsky 1967). They also have a Burkean structure (Burke 1945) because they are composed of a narrative pentad comprising an agent, an action, a situation, a purpose, and an instrument. They are “an account of what one thinks one did, in what settings, in what ways and for what felt reasons” (Bruner 1990, 119). In other words: within a sequence in which everything proceeds in a normative way, a problem emerges from which processes are put in place to address, or at least to understand, why this problem arose. After discovering the reason for the problem’s emergence, in that part of the narration called the “tail,” the narrator can also find a moral, a teaching to be drawn from the whole story that can refer to the life of the narrator or the meaning to be attributed to that “type” of events told. In this case, the aim is to understand and make people understand that what happened confirms a general theory about the fields of experience to which the events refer. It is therefore a matter of cognitive and communicative procedures that, starting from a single episode, try to obtain help with understanding reality. What is the fate of these autobiographical episodes? In some cases, they may be considered of little significance for the definition of the Self or of little

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representation, and may not be closely related to other stories or to the life story of the person. In other cases, if they are tales of self-defining memories and have gotten a good reception from others when they were told, they can become part of larger stories and “maybe allow similar stories to be told”. So what is the relationship between autobiographies and this type of autobiographical episode? These narratives bring important meanings to the autobiography for the Self. When a person constructs his or her own life story, perhaps in the form of an autobiography or stories to be analyzed, some of these episodes can be chosen, linked, and organized according to a causal or temporal coherence into larger structures of meaning. Autobiographies are therefore models of life stories that show in a more formal, explicit, and public way something that “in the small world” of daily narratives is built through the elaboration of autobiographical memories of individual episodes. What those great examples of autobiography teach our life stories is the fact that we all, when selecting our memories, choose the ones that most exemplify our Self, organize them into something more unitary, and at the same time create a hypothesis about our life that progressively begins to guide our autobiographical work.

Conclusion In this chapter I first dwelt on the discontinuity between the internal world and the external reality, describing the step between memory and narration. This step is determined by the physical and social constraints to which memory must be subjected at the moment at which it is narrated. These bonds would seem to constitute, from a certain point of view, an impoverishment of thought and memory, which, as long as it “stays closed in the mind,” can move with great freedom and apparent transparency, and makes us say “I know well how I feel, I know well what I think, I know well that I have understood, but how can I make comprehensible to you what I feel, think, and understand?”. Words seem limited and inadequate for representing our thoughts. But what appears to be a limit unexpectedly turns into a formidable resource. In fact, this very limit gives rise to a series of important transformations that could be schematically depicted as a succession.

Thought → voice → language → story → autobiographic genre

First of all, the emission of the voice transforms sensations and thoughts into sound waves that must be emitted one after the other. Then these sound waves are transformed into signs of the spoken language (words). Thought, so silent and syncretic, becomes more explicit when it is communicated because it takes on a public linguistic format. By becoming language, thought is divided into a more superficial aspect (the sign) and a deeper aspect (the meaning). All this allows a new awareness. In fact, to externalize one’s thought means being able to make one’s interiority

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communicable while respecting, at least to a certain extent, the needs of the world in which one lives. It will then be necessary to pay attention to the choice of vocabulary, to the construction of sentences, to the use of rhetorical artifices, to the way of interacting by coordinating verbal and nonverbal communication, what one wants to say and how one wants to say it. When this language then takes on a narrative structure and function, further transformations are imposed because the stories are endowed with properties and constraints to be respected if we want to be understood and interesting to the interlocutor. Then the existence of autobiographical genres will allow people to use models to become inspired in order to be able to make their memories fully understandable to themselves and to others. It is now a question of examining in greater depth what transformations thought, emotion, and memory go through when, once transformed into narration, they find in the other not only a listener, but an active partner who also judges and aspires to become a narrator.

References Abelard, P. (1133–1136). Historia calamitatum mearum. English edition: Abelard, P. (1922; 1972). The story of my misfortunes. Love letters from Abelard and Eloisa. New York: Macmillan. Alighieri, D. (1292–1294). La Vita Nuova. English transl. Dante Alighieri (2016) The new life. Wentworth PR. Bamberg, M. G., & Georgakopoulou, A. (2008). Small stories as a new perspective in narrative and identity analysis. Text and Talk, 28, 377–396. Brockmeier, J. (2015). Behyond the Archive. Memory, Narrative, and the Autobiographical Process. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (1990). Acts of meaning. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J. (2003). Making stories: Law, literature, life. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Burke, K. (1945). A grammar of motives. New York: Prentice-Hall. Chomsky, N. (1966). Cartesian linguistics: a chapter in the history of rationalist thought. New York: Harper and Row. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: Emotion, reason and the human brain. New  York: Avon Books. De Filippis, A. (2004). Nuovo manuale di logopedia. Trento: Erickson. De Saussure, F. (1962). Courses of general linguistics. Paris: Payot. English edition: de Saussure, F. (1959). Course in general linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library. Descartes, R. (1637). Discours de la méthode. Leiden: Ian Maire; English Edition: Descartes, R. (1996). Discourse on method. La Salle IL: Open Court. Descartes, R. (1644). Principia philosophiae, Amstelodami, apud Ludovicum Elzevirium; English edition: Descartes, R. (1983). Principles of philosophy. Dordrecht: Reidel. Descartes, R. (1649). Letter to More, February 1649. Trad. it. in Descartes, Sign and language by C. Stancati, Rome, Editori Riuniti, 2000, p. 183. Lettera DXXXVII a Henry More, 5 febbraio 1649; trad. it. in Cartesio, Segno e linguaggio, a cura di C. Stancati, Rome, Editori Riuniti, 2000, p. 183. Eimas, P.  D., Siqueland, E.  R., Jusczy, P., & Vigorito, J. (1971). Speech perception in infants. Science, 171(3968), 303–306. Habermas, T., & Bluck, S. (2000). Getting a life: The emergence of the life story in adolescence. Psychological Bulletin, 126(5), 748–769.

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Labov, W., & Waletsky, J. (1967). Narrative analysis: Oral version of personal experience. In J.  Helm (Ed.), Essays on the verbal and visual arts (pp.  17–44). Seattle: University of Washington Press. Leakey, M. (1983). Africa’s vanishing art: The rock paintings of Tanzania. New York: Doubleday. Lejeune, P. (1971). L’autobiographie en France. Paris: Colin. English edition: Lejeune, P. (1975). Le pacte autobiographique. Paris: Seuil. Lessing, D. (2004). Writing autobiography. In D.  Lessing (Ed.), Time bites: Views and reviews (pp. 90–103). London: Harper Perennial. McAdams, D. P. (2001). The Psychology of Life Stories. Review of General Psychology 5(2), 100–122. McAdams, D. P., Bauer, J. J., Sakaeda, A. R., Anyidoho, N. A., Machado, M. A., Magrino-Failla, K., & Pals, J. L. (2006). Continuity and change in the life story: A longitudinal study of autobiographical memories in emerging adulthood. Journal of Personality, 74(5), 1371–1400. McLean, K.  C., Pasupathi, M., & Pals, J.  L. (2007). Selves creating stories creating selves: A process model of self-development. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 113, 262–278. Mezzanzanica, M. (2007). Autobiografia, autobiografie, ricostruzione di Sé. Milan: Franco Angeli. Rousseau, J. J. (1782–1789). Les confessions. Genève. (Rousseau The Confessions English translation by Angela Scholar. Oxford: Oxford University 2000). Smorti, A. (2004). Psicologia culturale. Rome: Carocci. Smorti, A. (2011). Autobiographical memory and autobiographical narrative: What is the relationship? Narrative Inquiry, 21(2), 303–310. Spallanzani, M. (2015). Descartes: La regle de la raison. Paris: Librairie Philosophique J. Vrin. St. Augustine (approx. 398) (2010) Confessions. Orleans, MA: Paraclete Press. Tonelli, N. (2010). La poesia come strumento narrativo. Un sonetto di Dante. In S.  Giusti & F. Batini (Eds.), Imparare dalle narrazioni (pp. 101–114). Milan: Unicopli. Vico, G.  B. (1725–1728). Vita di Giambattista Vico scritta da sé medesimo. Torino: Einaudi, 1965. [The life of Giambattista Vico written by himself, in The Autobiography of Giambattista Vico translated from Italian by Max Harold Fish & Thomas Goddard Bergin. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1963]. Vico, G. B. (1744). Principj di scienza nuova di Giambattista Vico d’intorno alla comune natura delle nazioni, in Vico, G. B. (2005). Opere (pp. 411–971). Milan: Arnoldo Mondadori. Zambrano, M. (1995). La Confesiòn: Genero literario. Madrid: Siruela.

Chapter 5

The Narrative Dialogue

Research on Expressive Writing

Fig. 5.1  Rubin’s vase

Rubin’s vase is a well-known ambiguous figure that makes us perceive a vase or two faces in profile depending on which we focus our gaze upon: the figure or the background. It is part of an innumerable number of other ambiguous figures that Gestalt psychology has created to demonstrate the way in which the perceptive act takes place (Fig. 5.1). Rubin’s vase, has been chosen to start this chapter to show a similar ambiguity existing in the relationship between the Self and the Other and in particular in the vis-à-vis situations that characterize the dialogue between two people, one speaking and the other listening, i.e., between narrator and narratee. The fact that in the dialogue these roles are exchanged constitutes only one aspect of the question, an aspect that allows us to see the narrator–narratee relationship as two symmetrical faces facing each other. In reality, even in nondialogue situations, the Other, whom the narrator addresses, always maintains an ambiguity because he/she is able to © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_5

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change the tone and flow of communication through his/her answers. Even in the silence of the other, indeed precisely in this, the narratee becomes, in the eyes of the narrator, an ambiguous image to decipher. Although in the second part of this volume we return more extensively to the theme of narrative dialogue and the complexity of the understanding of the other, in this chapter we will have to examine this aspect because narration implies the Other and therefore the act of narrating is already at the beginning an act that is sensitive to the way in which the relationship between the Self and the Other is perceived. Up to now, the transformations that memory undergoes when it is told have been examined. When memory is verbalized through the voice and transformed into autobiographical narrative it appears as a social extension of autobiographical memory because  narrative brings “outside” the memory and adresses it to someone. But this extension is not so simple and is not without consequences for the memory itself. It is therefore important to examine the transformations that the narrative brings about in the memory. The question is: what happens to that memory once it has been told? Bartlett was perhaps the first to study scientifically the phenomenon of the reproduction of memories through the method of narration and re-narration. As you recall, his experiments had made it possible to point out that the repeated reproduction of a story many times led to its conventionalization. That is, a process was activated that consisted in the transformation of the narrative in the direction of a simpler and more coherent format. You may also remember that Breton had conducted numerous “literary experiments” with automatic writing. Although perhaps the word “experiment” may be misplaced, he had nevertheless been able to observe people’s behavior when they let their hands run away with them on the paper. James Pennebaker (Pennebaker et al. 1988, 2001; Pennebaker 1997) studied in depth the written narration of memories using the method of expressive writing, a method that is somewhat reminiscent of that used by Breton. In his clinical psychology laboratory in Austin, at the University of Texas, Pennebaker has been collecting repeated stories of traumatic events from his students for years. The request addressed to the participants was more or less always the same: they had to focus on a memory that had shaken them particularly and write in a flash on that event, giving free rein, especially to the emotional experience, without worrying about the style or the general sense of what they were writing. The expressive writing session, always starting from the same request, was repeated for four consecutive meetings within a maximum of 2 weeks. Changes in the story and some indicators of physical well-being were recorded, such as the number of times participants (college students) had visited the university campus doctor in the last year or the values of their blood tests. The results were surprising. The stories were very different in the various meetings from a qualitative point of view: if the first narratives were disorganized and full of terms referring to negative emotions, with their repetition they acquired coherence and a more orderly structure, leaving room for a greater number of positive emotions. There was a drastic decrease in medical visits in the months following the writing sessions, as well as an increase in immune defenses resulting from blood values.

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What could be the reasons for these beneficial changes? It was not only a cathartic effect determined by the fact that, through writing, the students were able to relieve the emotional burden of the painful experiences hitherto held within them. Rather, the most convincing hypothesis emerging from these works was that the painful experiences (thoughts, emotions, memories, etc.), once transformed into history according to a certain format, lost at least part of their stress effect. The study of the texts collected during the expressive writing sessions gave body and substance to this idea. For example, the stories that produced a greater increase in well-being in the participants had certain characteristics. There was a more frequent use of positive emotional words, the presence of an average number of negative emotional words (a very high or very low amount of negative emotional words is correlated with a worse state of health), an increase in words concerning thought, those referring to causal links (“why”) and understanding (“understand,” “realize”).

How to Narrate Changes the Memory When a complex event, such as one that has unwanted or much desired consequences for us, is organized in the format of a story, it is simplified; when the story is told several times, the most minute data are smoothed out while maintaining the salient information, the story is shortened, and the events are organized in a coherent way, integrating thoughts and moods. Once an experience has structure and meaning, the emotional effects of that experience become more manageable. On the basis of Pennebaker’s studies, with my research group I have conducted several research projects, together with my research group, on psychiatric patients and parents of hospitalized children (Smorti et al. 2008, 2010; Smorti and Donzelli 2015) with similar results in terms of state of well-being and modification of the writing or autobiographical narrative. As they told, people became more aware and discovered aspects that had not emerged in previous narratives. For example, we (Smorti et al. 2008) asked psychiatric patients to tell their own life story in the form of an interview. This story was recorded, then transcribed, and, at the next meeting, shown to the patient who could re-read it, if he wanted to do so. At the second meeting, the participants were asked to tell the same story again, but this time after having been able to read or scroll through the product of the first meeting. Comparing the following stories through various techniques, both quantitative and qualitative, some important transformations of the story have been found. The narratives following the first one, also thanks to the reading of the written text, expressed a different point of view, a greater awareness, a greater focus on the properties of the protagonist. These changes can be observed in the following example. First interview: How come I started fighting with my mother when I came home, not accepting the dialogue with my mother anymore, I don’t know either. From 18 to 23 years there has been this behavior on my part and I do not know why. Second interview: I’ve thought about it many times … maybe I started to really enter the adult world and maybe I didn’t … I had abandoned football when I was 16 years old, I had

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5  The Narrative Dialogue chosen the wrong school, these two factors influenced me and made me nervous, these two wrong choices and hence and then I’d dump them on my relationship with my mom, for outside I was quiet, I was lively, I was happy, whereas at home I was more naughty … From 16 to 23 years was very often quarrelsome for we no longer told each other anything, each one went own way (F., male, 40 years old).

We notice that the although narrator does not provide an explanation of the conflictual relationship with his mother the first time, the second time he tries to give an interpretation of what he initially believes not to have an explanation, thus making a narrative effort that allows him a causal attribution. This type of research on the effect of the repetition of stories, however, even though it highlighted the processes of transformation from one narrative to another, left unresolved the question of language and the possibility of distinguishing between memory and autobiographical narrative. Did these changes in writing indicate learning different styles of linguistic expression or just a change in the way we remember a particular event? But how can we measure the transformations that memory undergoes when it is narrated?   We then  decided  to measure the memory before it was told, according to a method that involved a minimum use of language, so as to compare this memory with what was represented through the narrative that is of course made of  language. We have therefore conducted further investigations aimed at assessing how the use of narrative could affect memories (Tani et al. 2015; Smorti et al. 2016; Fioretti and Smorti 2015; Smorti and Fioretti 2015). The experimental paradigm used in the different pieces of research is as follows. In the first phase of the experiment, through the memory fluency test the person is asked to write down as many memories as possible to recall in 3 min about a certain topic (for example, a painful episode at school, an experience of loss, an episode of illness). Given the limited time available, the participants only have the opportunity to write the “title” of their memories, for example, in the case of a painful episode at school, a short title such as “a bad question at school”; “the death of a partner of mine”; “a quarrel with a friend”. Immediately afterward they are asked to specify when and where the episode took place and to classify each memory by choosing one or more words from a list of 12 emotions of positive (joy, tranquility, etc.) or negative (sadness, fear, etc.). This technique minimized the impact that language could have on memory. In the second phase of the experiment the participants have to choose one of these memories and tell it in detail (in some experiments in oral form, in others in written form). After writing the story, they must classify the narrative of the memory using the same list of emotions already used before. In the third phase, finally, which takes place at a distance of time that may vary depending on the experiments, the participants are subjected to the same test of the first phase: they were told to write as many memories as they could on the same subject, in 3 min, specifying that they had to indicate the memories that emerged into the mind at that time. The emotional classification of memories concludes this phase and the whole experiment. Through this method it is possible: (1) to distinguish two different types of mnestic reference, one that makes a modest use of language (at most one line of “title” in the memory fluency test) and one with a more extensive use (in the narration of the

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chosen memory that could reach more than one page); (2) compare the changes in the emotional value of the event between when it is simply evoked in the memory fluency test to when it is being told. As the task of fluency involves a very poor use of language, whereas the narration is much richer, the comparison between memory and narration can provide an indication of how the event is remembered depending on the degree to which the language is used (comparison between memory and narration); (3) to verify how the narration influences memory by comparing the first and the second task of fluency in the first and third phases of the experiment respectively. A control group that does not use narrative allows us to evaluate how the re-­ enactment of memory changes without the influence of narrative proof. Comparing the two tests of fluency it is therefore possible to measure whether any changes that the memory undergoes when it is told remain only limited at the time of the story or if the memory remains modified over time, because the narrative has changed its emotional connotation. In a study (Fioretti and Smorti 2015) conducted on university students, the experimental paradigm described above was applied to the study of the memory of unpleasant events that occurred during high school or university. The most important findings of the survey were that, in the first place, memories were more easily remembered after being told. It is therefore a confirmation of the role of rehearsal that the narrative has. Second, the memories that were chosen to be told, after they were told, acquired a different emotional tone: they became richer and more complex on an emotional level than the memories that had not been told. In this case, the results highlighted the positive effects of the narrative on memory. In a survey with cancer patients (Fioretti and Smorti 2016) the same procedure as in the previous research was followed, but with a small modification. In the first phase, which the patients had to produce in 3 min, through the memory fluency test, the more memories they could relate to their illness, then they had to classify these memories through the list of positive or negative emotions. In the second phase they had to choose one of those memories. At this point, two groups were formed (comparable with each other in terms of disease variables): a group was asked to choose and tell a pleasant experience among those that had listed in the memory fluency test while another has an unpleasant experience. Immediately afterwards they had to classify their story through the same list of adjectives used to classify the memory. In the third phase, they responded to the memory fluency test and evaluated memories according to the same list. In the following graphs it is possible to observe the participants’ answers divided according to whether the emotions attributed to memory were only positive, only negative or mixed (positive and negative). The two graphs refer to the two distinct groups of patients that had to remember a pleasant experience and that had to remember an unpleasant experience. The results show that the group of patients reporting a unpleasant memory, compared with the group reporting a pleasant memory, was characterized by a greater change during the three phases of the research. When they recounted their unpleasant memory, the narrative took on more positive and less negative tones. This change was also partly maintained in the third phase when the patients in this group had to reassess their memory (Fig. 5.2).

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5  The Narrative Dialogue Amount of emotions experienced in a group of patients who had to tell a pleasant memory

Amount of emotions experienced in a group of patients who had an unpleasant memory

Fig. 5.2  Emotions attributed to memory in the three phases of the study with patients suffering from cancer. MFT1 first memory fluency test, N narrative, MFT2 second memory fluency test

This result is a further confirmation of the function carried out by autobiographical narration with respect to memory: that of being able to reduce the impact of negative emotions. It is possible that this effect, as McAdams et  al. (2006) also claimed, was because in the narrations of negative episodes the narrator actively tries to solve the problem connected with negative emotions more than when telling positive memories. This would explain why the story of this memory modifies some of its features such as the fluency, complexity, emotional tone, and richness of mental attributes. There are good reasons to believe that this is because of the different format that narratives have compared with memories. Back in 1990, Schank had already highlighted how stories constitute a system for remembering and how the way of archiving the memories told is an important resource for understanding subsequent events. According to the author, the stories are indexed and recalled when it is necessary to interpret a new event. The transformation of memory into a story and then of a story into memory is a process that induces important changes in the same way of reasoning. In fact, progressively, memory becomes more and more structured in a narrative way. Confused memories of experiences, if told, take on a subject–verb–predictive articulation and the same format of story pushes us to find the causes of events, the aims that the characters set themselves, where in memory the syncreticity and condensation of the predicative function prevails. This leads us to make an important distinction between memories that, having never been told, maintain their mnestic format, even with all the changes related to the life of the memory, and memories that, having been told, progressively take on a narrative format and become easier to tell or at least are kept in memory in narrative form. But when we tell a memory we always do it in relation to someone. What effect do we have on others when we tell and what effect do others have on our stories? How will others judge us? Will we be convincing? Can we get what we need from them? This is why we must consider a further transformation connected to the fact that the narratives are immersed in the relationship that the narrator has with the Other.

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How the Other Transforms the Narrative Even if the memories of one’s own life always concern the relationship of the Self with the Other (even if in a tacit way), it is very rare that they address a recipient. The purpose of remembrance is directed toward the Self because it is the Self that needs it. Narration, on the other hand, by definition, turns to an Other, the narratee, and, even when it is written in the solitude of one’s own studio, it turns to a “model reader”.1 However, there are some exceptions that are not covered by this rule. They are the monologue narrations observed in young children (Bruner and Lucariello 1989) and which have the function of allowing a verbalization of memories or reflections. These narrative forms do not explicitly address another and seem very similar to what Vygotsky (1934) called “egocentric language.” Through these monologues, the first narrative skills are formed in children. In this way, the child practices verbal reasoning and remembrance, which can then be internalized and go on to form the inner thought. These forms of monologue remain in adulthood, even if they have different functions. Perhaps the best known is “thinking aloud.”2 This conduct may appear when you are facing difficult situations or need to clarify your thinking. Sometimes it is useful to reassure yourself; in other cases, thinking aloud instead serves to establish an imaginary dialogue with an interlocutor to whom one thinks of saying something that perhaps has not been said, a sort of esprit de l’escalier3 In this situation, however, the soliloquy is directed to another imaginary situation. Monologues are intermediate forms between the interior and exterior. In them there is already a form of language, the physical emission of the voice, the words that are pronounced, even if in a sketched or smoothed way. It is not always clear, however, who the interlocutor is. When you tell someone something, you still need to bring out thoughts, memories and emotions, that is to say, make a sort of Selbstdarstellung, a self-exposure, which also refers to another who looks at us, and, in the case of the narrative, who listens to us. Narrative, in fact, is a communicative act, even if sometimes obscure, egocentric and intentionally cryptic and, as such, takes place within a narrator–narrator relationship. This communicative act does not necessarily imply that the narrator is really an “Other by Himself”. In fact, you can turn to another “as if” he were aware of the implicit context of our story.

1  According to Umberto Eco (1977), an author who writes a text (empirical author), when he writes, he defines the type of self-image he wants to give to the reader (model author). The model author in turn establishes a model reader to whom he can turn, who, however, could be very different from the empirical reader, who will in fact read the work and judge the empirical author. 2  Here, the word monologue is used as a synonym for soliloquy, and is distinct from the theatrical monologue in which the person speaks to himself/herself, but actually addresses an audience. 3  Diderot in his Actor’s Paradox gave his name to this situation in which a person remembers only after a meeting with an interlocutor what he could say or do. The Esprit de l’escalier is a way of retrospectively modifying one’s own story by imagining an alternative version and building a response strategy to be used on the next occasion (Diderot 1830).

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The fact remains, however, that the communicative act, even if egocentric, implies speaking to another whose presence modifies the way in which a story is modulated. Therefore, given the narration as a communicative form that implies the other, it is useful to remember two principles that guide the narrations highlighted by Labov (1997): the principle of “recountability” and that of “credibility.” It is not easy to define, in absolute terms, what can be said and what cannot be said. The recountability or  narratability is very much influenced by the context, the listener, the narrator’s ability to tell, etc. However, it can be said that the principle of recountability refers to the need that the narrator has to be listened to, and one is listened to only if one tells something interesting or in an interesting way. Reliability is a relational concept because it ultimately depends on the relationship between the narrator and the narrator. Some things seem new and unexpected for the person who tells them, but they may not be for the listener. The child, on his incessant journey towards mastery of the narrative medium, shows that he understands the importance of novelty, when, for example, at the age of 3 he says, with the air of someone who is pulling a stunt, that he saw trousers walking or that he met the girlfriend of the table. Credibility is also a relational dimension and as such cannot be defined in absolute terms. It refers to the need that the narrator has to be believed. But to be believed he must, in addition to having a reputation as a respectable person, tell things in a credible way. Credibility must refer to a model of normality or of a world shared with the listener. If both share a model of a world in which wolves speak, well, the narrator can also tell that he had a coffee with a talking wolf. But this, of course, rarely happens. Usually wolves do not speak but are in the woods, in the mountains, there could be a place to find a wolf because it respects this model of the world. Sharing a model of the world means that statements that are consistent with this model are considered plausible. Credibility has nothing to do with rationality, therefore, but only with being plausible in the sense specified above. Metropolitan legends about crocodiles found in sewers and cannibal babysitters have been considered true and therefore have been credible and plausible (Bermani 1991). The notions of recountability and credibility clearly link autobiographical narrative to the world of culture and more specifically to the relationship between oneself and another, or, to use terminology more appropriate to our purposes, narrator–narratee. Autobiographical storytelling, at least if it is not a monologue, must bend in the direction of a social relationship in order to be successful. It is the need to be heard and believed that drives people to build well-formed narratives that take into account the listener. In particular cases, this principle is further reinforced by the need for people to receive support from others in difficult times. When an event involves an emotional break, people try to share their experience with others to try to cope with it (Pasupathi 2003). In these cases, a conversation about memories is created in which the narrator actively interacts with a narrator. This process is more than just a communication of personal experiences: it becomes the basis for the two partners to jointly build a narrative that can capture new meanings, new aspects and new characteristics of the

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event (Bavelas et al. 2000; Pasupathi 2001). For this reason, the attitude of the narrateebecomes decisive. The latter contributes to the modulation of the narration in many ways: with the gaze, the mimicry, the maintenance of attention, the confirmations, showing interest and acceptance, insights, and points of view. In doing so, he becomes part of the elaboration of the narrator’s personal story. The relationship between the two therefore allows the emergence of a new story that differs from what the narrator may have told others because it is modified by a new interactive situation. Some authors have stressed the importance of the closeness and similarity between narrator and narratee. For example, individuals who tell a friend about past events tend to remember more information than those who tell a stranger (Alea and Bluck 2003). The relationship between the two dialogue partners influences not only the type of story being told but also the act of listening to it (Bluck et al. 2013) and this in turn reverberates on the act of narrating and consequently on the subjective aims of the narrator because the narratee develops expectations about what the narrator will say, for example, about his mood and type of past events, their emotional tone, etc. (Skowronski and Walker 2004). The narratives are longer, more articulated and coherent, and richer in positive emotions than in negative ones (Bavelas et al. 2000; Pasupathi 2003). Given these premises we wanted to verify if the type of listening could change the memory of the event itself and not only its narration, using a “memory–narrative–memory” method similar to what we had used in the research projects mentioned above. In other words, the question we posed to ourselves is whether the fact of telling an unpleasant event to an empathic narratee, rather than a distracted one, transformed the memory of the event and how. For this purpose we (Pascuzzi et al. 2016; Fioretti et al. 2017) compared two different situations in which adolescents and young adults told the memory of a painful episode to a narratee who was listening empathetically or distractedly. In the first phase, participants had to choose a memory of the end of an important relationship. We did not use in this research the memory fluency test and the participants simply had to say “the title of this memory” within a fairly short time. Then they had to evaluate the memory in terms of positive or negative emotions associated with it using, in writing, the usual list of 12 emotions. In the second phase, the participants were divided into two groups. In one group, they had to tell this memory to a narratee who was listening empathetically, in the other to a narratee who was listening distractedly. The narratee was a properly trained experimenter of about the same age as the participants. In the version of “empathetic” listening the narratee interacted by mimicking the narrator and tried to identify with him. In the distracted listening version, the same person avoided eye contact with the narrator by trying to think of something else. After the story, the participant was asked to classify his report through the list of emotions. In the third phase, after 15 days, the participants were asked to return their minds to the memory evoked in the first phase and to classify it through the same list of emotions. The results showed that the narratives addressing an attentive narratee were longer, more articulated and coherent, and richer in positive emotions than those

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addressing a distracted one and that these effects were maintained significantly at a later follow-up after 15  days. This means that the memory itself had changed because now it resembled much more, emotionally, the narrative than the first memory. These results confirm the social nature of the narrative act as claimed, among others, by Pasupathi (2001) and Skowronski and Walker (2004). Pasupathi has highlighted how the narrative takes place within a co-construction relationship in which the two interlocutors, through verbal and nonverbal behaviors, can express or not express interest and approval of what is told, thus influencing the motivation to tell and the production of further memories. All this naturally has an impact on the processes of rehearsal and the memory of the event. In our experiment, which, as such, does not reproduce completely what happens inside a real conversation, because in our case, the narratee does not contribute with his own narrations; it is however clear how the simple fact of listening to a narrator in different ways significantly influences the way in which the narrator lives and remembers emotionally that experience. The narration therefore takes place within a given conversational situation and can be considered a form of social rehearsal. According to Skowronski and Walker (2004) the social rehearsal also occurs more often than other types of rehearsal. These authors asked the participants in a research project to make a list of autobiographical events that occurred in the last 6  months that they thought about most frequently. They then asked them the main reason why they returned to rethink and remember those events. The answer was that the main purpose was to talk about their memories to others. Sharing past events with others is a natural way of remembering that develops intimacy and allows processes of dramatization, interpretation, and negotiation of the memories related (Alea and Bluck 2003; Pasupathi 2001). According to Nelson and Fivush (2004), this reworked social activity facilitates a process in which the meanings brought by the words used in the story are inserted into the memory of the event (verbal reinstatement or verbal reintegration). In conclusion, telling another a story about a past event changes the memory that tends to assume the narrative format used in the story. At the same time, talking about one’s experiences to sincerely interested people who participate in what is being told strengthens a sense of intimacy and gives the narrator the feeling of being listened to and accepted (McAdams 2001) and this leads to a change in the emotional tone of the memory in a positive sense (Pasupathi 2001).

Narration and Conversational Rules The autobiographical narration of a particular episode of life cannot be considered a text that the narrator re-proposes to others always in the same format because it is, on the contrary, dependent on the aims that the narrator sets himself with that communication, contingent on the way in which the narratee listens and reacts and in general on the type of communicative relationship that has been established between

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the two. It then becomes clear that the autobiographical narrative must be considered to be very similar to a conversation, that is, to a reciprocal and interactive process of which the produced story is the result. But if so, the conversational rules already highlighted by Grice (1975), indispensable to be able to be cooperative, can be applied to this type of narrative conversation. These are the maxims quality (“Do not say what you think is false”), quantity (“Be informative as much as you are asked to” and “Do not be more informative than you are asked to”), relationship (“Be relevant”), manner (“Avoid the use of obscure expressions”), and brevity (“Avoid unnecessary prolongation”). According to Skowronski and Walker (2004), conversational situations of a narrative nature follow maxims similar to those of Grice, albeit with some differences. “Tell something new.” When you are involved in social discourse with others, one of the rules a speaker needs to follow is to be informative, that is to say to tell something that is supposedly not known to the listener. This maxim is similar to the quantity maxim: “Be as informative as you are asked to be.” “Tell us something relevant.” In conversations, speakers “know” that each memory reported should be relevant to the topic of the conversation. This standard requires the speaker to understand the purposes of the listener and provide input to achieve these purposes. This maxim is identical to Grice’s report maxim “Be relevant.” “Tell the truth.” I mean, be honest. When this standard is active it can influence the content of an event description. This is similar to the quality maxims: “Don’t say what you think is false,” “don’t say what lacks adequate proof.” “Be brief.” The narrator expects the speech to proceed in accordance with the time available. This maxim is similar to the maxim quantity: “Do not make the contribution more informative than you are asked.” “Be understandable.” When reporting an event, a speaker must take into account the characteristics of the listener. This often means that one event must be communicated in such a way that the other can understand it. This rule is similar to the maxims of the manner: “Avoid obscure expressions and avoid ambiguity”. “Facilitates feedback.” Feedback is important in the conversation for both partners because it addresses both the story and the listening. It has also been shown that the narratee who provides a feedback shows that he understands the story that the narrator is telling him more than the narratee who does not provide a feedback.  “Express a point of view.” The narrator, in an attempt to be as informative as possible, could tell of certain critical incidents in his/her personal life that are particularly indicative of his/her narrative intentions. “Facilitates feedback” and “express a point of view” add something to Grice’s maxims because they introduce two typical narrative features. The first is that to narrate you need to have an answer from the narratee (“facilitates feedback”). This means that narration is a process that must be constantly remodeled and corrected on the basis of the reactions of the narratee. Allowing these reactions to come to light creates a narrator–narratee circularity that makes communication more effective. The second—“express a point of view”—suggests that narration might be an

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act that depends on the narrator’s opinions and the way in which he positions himself with respect to what he tells. Telling by expressing a point of view publicly introduces a subjective dimension that invites a relationship of negotiation of meanings between the interlocutors.

Conclusion Let’s now see how research into the relationship between memory and autobiographical narrative can help us to define at least in part the process of narrative understanding. If we consider this relationship in the movement that goes from memory to narration, we can above all observe the processes of memory that are prolonged in the narration that is directed toward the Other within a determined Self–Other situation. Memory brings to narration its own content of memories expressed at a certain level of generality, organization, and emotional positive and negative load. In turn, the narration enriches the narrator–narratee relationship with a story (in its aspects of fabula and sjužet) and with a communicative and pragmatic intent aimed at modifying and influencing the mental state of the narrator. The representation of the process could then be: memory turns into narration, which opens up to the relationship with the Other. This representation goes from the individual to the social and depicts the relationships among memory, narration, and relationship as a sort of conveyor belt Self–Other that, in fact, externalizes memories to lead them to the relationship with the interlocutor. Narrative comprehension could then be defined as a form of awareness that develops when memories are transformed into sound waves and a language addressed to the other. A language that takes on the structure and the function of a story. However, this definition is incomplete and potentially misleading. It is affected by the model of memory as an archive where the narrative does nothing but translate into linguistic and communicative terms and under the format of history what is stored in memory. I have repeatedly criticized the inadequacy of this perspective to account for what happens in the narrative dialogue. It photographs the relationship among memory, narration, and relationship as part of a process that is much broader, with a before and an after. So what was there before? And in our case, what is before memory? We can go one step further by trying to answer the question “what was there before” if we consider the connections among memory, narration, and relation in the opposite sense: the relation Self–Other modifies the narration, which in turn modifies memory. This representation describes a movement that goes from the social to the individual. A relational situation where a narrative act occurs has at least one narrator, one narratee, and rules of conversation. This context influences the narrative act and the narrative produced, which, in turn, transform memory in many ways. They bring into memory the concrete physical reality of a phonatory act, the semiotic quality of verbal language, the structure and format of a story, and the social and relational properties of having become a communicative act. The patrimony of a narration

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made of causal, temporal, conditional, conjunctive, concessive propositions, of lexical instruments to express emotions and cognitive states, of rhetoric of persuasion, all this can enter into the process of transformation through which the narration is internalized in memory. In short, the relationship between memory and narration can be considered a process that takes place in two phases. A first phase is when memory is narrated. The memory is then externalized in the narrative. In a second phase, after the memory has been narrated, it becomes an object of interiorization and returns to being a memory. But when you have to recall this memory, it will no longer be the same, because it has gone through the first phase in which it was told and the second in which it was internalized. Moreover, as this two-step process can be repeated many times (in fact we can go back and tell that memory again), the memory ends up containing not only the encoding of the original event but all the operations of rehearsal mnestic (every time we remember that event) and narrative (every time we tell the memory of that event within a given situation). According to this representation, part of the autobiographical memory, the one that has been told to someone, also becomes memory of the narratives of the memories. And, because the narratives took place within specific relational contexts, they also bring to memory, at least in part, those properties of the narrative act and of the narrative modified by the contexts in which the narratives occurred. Which means that the narrative brings a heritage of human relationships to memory. On the other hand, the narrative is also influenced by the memories that have been enriched by the previous internalizations of the narrative. Telling them that memory is then very different from the first time. The narrative understanding that the narrator develops within a dialogue with the narratee is therefore a two-stage process in which memory is transformed into narrative and narrative into memory through processes of exteriorization and internalization. The effort to translate an inner thought into an outer language requires the development of a new awareness because it obliges the narrator to overcome those physical and social constraints that we have mentioned. But with the translation of the narration into memory, the narrator becomes able to look at his memories from different points of view, precisely because they have been told to a narratee, who, even just by listening to him, induces him to consider his memories with new points of view that have emerged in that specific relational situation. Figure 5.3 represents the narrative understanding that is developed by the narrator. It is, as you can see, a complex process consisting of a subsequent and alternating reciprocal encapsulation between memory and narration (ME and NA). In fact, memory, with the extension of the narrative relationship, ends up containing within it, at least in part, the previous narrative experiences of memories (and thus be a memory of narratives of memories) and the narrative, on the other hand, ends up containing previous memories of narratives (and thus be a narrative of memories of narratives) (Smorti and Fioretti 2015). This model is consistent with Vygotsky’s theory that the relationship between thought and language is structured as a two-way process. In fact: …while in external speech thought is embodied in words, inner speech words die as they bring forth thought. Inner speech is to a large extent thinking in pure meanings. It is a

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Fig. 5.3  The narrative self-understanding that is developed by the narrator dynamic, shifting, unstable thing, fluttering between word and thought, the two more or less stable, more or less firmly delineated components of verbal thought. (Vygotskij 1934; English translation 1896, 249)

In Vygotsky’s theory, the type of language used after his interiorization is not the same as the social language that was used at the age of 2–3 when the inner language was still absent. The language used after interiorization is a language that has been transformed: from inner language to outer language and then again to inner language. First it became a verbal thought and then, to put it in Vygotsky’s words, a rational language. Figure 5.3 represents these processes of transformation in a manner consistent with Vygotsky’s theory. It depicts a narrative of a memory of a narrative of a memory. This model is also consistent with what Skowronski and Walker (2004) have proposed. They claim that: (a) the rehearsal influences memory, and the social rehearsal (story) is one of the most powerful forms of rehearsal; (b) the tale of autobiographical stories is a rehearsal of the processing of memory and leads to a change in the way in which the event is remembered (Tulving and Craik 2000); (c) in telling the events, the narrator makes a selection because some details of events can be emphasized at the expense of others, some can be altered whereas still others can be omitted. This selection obviously has the potential to shape the memory of the event: the details excluded from the narration will in the future be less easily remembered whereas other details included in the description, even if false, could be mistakenly remembered as part of the initial event; (d) telling others about their memories alters the representation originally contained in the memory because it offers a new mnestic representation that competes with the original track. This is what happens, for example, in the phenomenon of verbal overshadowing (Dodson et al. 1997). When asked to verbally describe a memory that has happened, a double representation is created. The first episodic memory of the original event is added to a second one consisting of the description of the event. To the extent that the opportunity to tell the story of the event is repeated, the details related to the description will be more easily remembered than the details related to the memory of the original event but not shared in the story. Finally, this proposal is consistent with what Pasupathi (2001) says: a person, while narrating, refers both to the way in which he told the memory of past times and to the original event.

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In summary: through the continuous two-way process that we have described, the memory of an event becomes more and more social because it becomes the memory of all those social situations in which the narration of the memory itself has occurred. The model of narrative comprehension that I have traced is basically a process of reflection that the narrator makes about himself and his relationship with others. The narration reflects the memory and the memory of the narration in a sort of game of mirrors. In this metaphor memory and narration are two mirrors that reproduce two theoretically infinite series of images, one that starts from memory and one that starts from narration. If we consider Fig. 5.4, inspired to Hofstatter’s book (2007) I rings, it reproduces this game of mirrors in wich each mirror contains the image of the other mirror that contains the image if the other and so on. Fig. 5.4  Mirror game

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This loop is not uncommon, as you can see from reading Hofstatter’s book. At the same time it is also a depiction of Chinese boxes where MENA… NAME contain other NAME MENA. Finally, what has been expressed above is consistent with the concept of the narrativization of the remembered experience (Bruner 1986, 1990, 1991, 2004; White 1980). Transforming our experience into narration means subjecting it to the constraints to which a narration is subject and making it a socially acceptable story. In this way, the narrative enriches the memory of this experience of sharing and when the narrative is internalized by becoming personal memory again, this memory has become a personal memory enriched by social experience. This means that this discontinuity between memory and narration, from which we started, is mitigated, because within our autobiographical memory there are narrative plots. The mysterious leap from memory to narration, at least as far as the memories told are concerned, becomes less mysterious and less radical but more continuous. This is the reason why we become social beings: the more we individualize ourselves—as Vygotsky said—the more we socialize. Some questions may be raised at the end of this chapter. But does autobiographical narration come only from the need to tell memories (even if they are narrative) or is it composed of something else too? Is it only intended to talk about the past, even if it is lived in the present, even if it is intended to influence the present, or even to invent something? Is its purpose only to build and verify a history of the events that have taken place in the res gestae halfway between a mnemonist and a historian, or is it also interested in following the pleasure of the imagination? We will try to answer to these questions in the next chapter, in which we will examine another path through which we come to the narration, a path that does not affect so much the memory as the play.

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Tulving, E., & Craik, F.  I. M. (2000). The Oxford handbook of memory. New  York: Oxford University Press. Vygotsky, L.  S. (1934). Myshlenie i rech, Socekgiz. Moscow-Leningrad. English translation, Thought and language. Cambridge: MIT (1986). White, H. (1980). The value of narrativity in the representation of reality. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.), On narratives (pp. 1–24). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

Chapter 6

From Play to Narrative

 t the Beginning of Knowledge: The Pleasure A of Understanding the Unexpected

Fig. 6.1  An apprentice marionetter © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_6

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This photograph (6.1) depicts an apprentice marionetter, a job, needless to say, now obsolete. The marionetter’s art (like that of the puppeteer) is ancient and has helped to hand down traditions and collective memories by enchanting with stories and legends of heroes. The villagers, young and old, flocked to see this show where the marionette was the actor and the marionetter the director who moved it. The possibility of moving, arousing fear or making people laugh was linked not only to his skill, but also to the identification of the spectator in the characters that the marionette impersonated. This is not a puppet show, a real theatre show, nor a childish play, as it could be to have toy soldiers clash with each other, nor a story based on words and a few gestures. It is something that lies halfway, on the one hand, between the play and the theatre, on the other, between the play and the narration, connections that can be interesting to rediscover as one does with an old road covered with vegetation, almost forgotten, that used to connect two places. In this chapter we deal with the transition from game to narrative, but, in order to get to the storytelling starting from the game, it is necessary to start from even further away, from that moment in the children’ s life when they show themselves interested in reality in a new way, thanks to the possibilities offered by the development of their perceptive and motor skills. We will see how, in finding this way again, childish knowledge is an activity linked to the pleasure of discovering the constancy and variability of reality and how aesthetic appreciation, so linked to curiosity and sense of surprise, is essential for knowledge. This chapter will therefore also deal with the problem of play, beauty and their role in narrative understanding. How to describe childhood curiosity? How to find the right words to account for the interest that a healthy and awake child has in reality, his watchful and attentive expression that shows in the face of events that may seem strange and unusual to him? Take Niccolò, who is 10 months old: how do we explain the fact that he can spend a fairly long time with an empty plastic bottle trying to screw the cap back on? With an intake of breath, he moves his hand, brings the cap closer to the opening: now he seems to have screwed the cap on, instead he doesn’t, he tries again, no, still, no, no, no. Then, finally, a slighter rotation hand movement, a greater coordination with the approach of the cap to the bottle, a greater precision, all these conditions, perhaps reached by chance, finally produce the desired effect: the cap is screwed on! But immediately afterwards, without remaining in contemplation, as would be natural for an adult who has completed his masterpiece, he starts unscrewing again, but it is not certain that he can detach the cap, which instead remains attached and then again and again and again until, with a movement of the hand in the opposite direction to that made to screw it, he succeeds, and so the cycle begins again. When we speak of the child as a creature that is fearful in the face of a stranger, who suffers when he is removed from the mother, who is anxious in the face of new situations that may expose him as helpless to a stranger, a possible predator, we should always remember that there are also other long, endless moments in which what is new, strange, and unexpected becomes so interesting, when the attention, which elsewhere and at other times is widespread, becomes focused only on a small

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portion of the world, in a pertinaceous and surprising ability to pursue its purpose, despite failures, despite those frustrations that on other occasions could lead to anger and fury. These are the behavioral states, it will be said, those so well-described by Brazelton (1992, see also: Siegel 1999), according to which the newborn can go from a state of agitated wakefulness, when reactivity is higher and needs such as hunger or crying arise, to a state of quiet wakefulness, in which he has no particular needs and is receptive to the external environment and its changes. It is a state in which the attachment system is put on off. The child feels safe, there are no dangers, and he/she knows that the caregivers are nearby.1 That’s why he has no reason to be alarmed, he doesn’t have to be prepared to defend himself and then, under these conditions, he can finally look around to explore the environment without a practical purpose, without seeking the proximity of a safe base, but with a new spirit. In this state, in which the child is free from the needs of internal or external stimuli, he or she seems to be looking for something that interests him or her, perhaps that effect that he or she has caused or obtained by chance, that curious event that pleases him or her. We are in the first year of life and precisely at that moment of development, which, according to the piagetian theory, corresponds to the third stage2 of the sensomotor period, when the secondary circular reactions appear (approximately from the 4th to the 8th month). The child is already able to go beyond the simple reflex and now the mechanicity and repetitiveness of the response to a stimulus is, at least in part, replaced with a more flexible behavior that moves and changes in relation to the effects it produces. Some of these effects are defined by Piaget as spectacles intéressants and the child then finds appropriate ways to prolong the interesting shows (procédés à faire durer les spectacles intéressants). Now, the word spectacle cannot have been chosen by chance and suggests some aesthetic appreciation of a sensory or perceptive nature. Piaget has given countless examples of this phenomenon through her observations of her children. Likewise, at 0;5 (25) and the days following, Laurent looks at an unfolded newspaper which I place on the hood of his bassinet. He immediately begins to pull the strings hanging from the hood, to shake himself or his feet and arms. He bursts out laughing on seeing the move-

1  This state is well described by Winnicott in his essay “The capacity to be alone,” where the great English psychoanalyst describes a situation in which the child is alone in the presence of his mother. Still the child is not able to separate and be without her. However, if he has internalized a sufficiently good relationship with his mother, and if she is present, he manages to be alone (Winnicott 1958). Winnicott (1971) also expressed a similar concept in Play and Reality where he specified how play presupposes in the child a relaxation of physical excitement and being alone in the presence of someone he loves (Winnicott 1971, 102). 2  The notion of a phase is quite controversial today. I use it to follow the Piagetian reconstruction with greater adherence, especially as regards the aesthetic dimension in the process of knowledge and the relationship that is created between the symbolic and narrative periods. For the purposes of this discussion, it is not essential to come to a decision on whether or not states exist, but only to clarify what is the evolutionary path taken by the child.

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6  From Play to Narrative ments of the newspaper just as he frequently does when the rattles shake. (Piaget 1936, English translation 1956, 198). At 0;7 (2), in effect, Laurent is in the process of striking a cushion when I snap my middle finger against the ball of my thumb. Laurent then smiles and strikes the cushion but while staring at my hand; as I no longer move, he strikes harder and harder, with a definite expression of desire and expectation and, at the moment when I resume snapping my fingers, he stops as though he had achieved his object. A moment later, I hid behind a big curtain and reappeared every few minutes. In the interim, Laurent strikes his covers harder and harder while looking at the curtain. (Piaget 1936, English translation 1956, 202).

In these cases it can be seen that the secondary circular reaction is, on the one hand, a feedback mechanism and, on the other hand, an activity that is voluntarily produced. It allows the baby to reproduce an interesting result obtained earlier or discovered by chance at the time (movements of the newspaper, snapping fingers, reappearance of the head of the father).3 Subsequent developments, which mark the entrance into the real form of intelligence, are the elaborations of this conquest. In the fourth stage (8–12 months) the baby is able to apply known patterns to new situations. He has already discovered what procedures are useful to make interesting shows last and is able to pursue a new purpose and not just try to achieve an already achieved purpose (reproduce an interesting effect). He then tries, through active exploration, to assimilate the new purpose within the old patterns. In short, it is as if the baby were trying to understand and, in the presence of the new object, said: “What is this thing? I see it, I hear it, I grab it, I feel it, I turn it over without recognizing it: what more can I do?” An example of this conduct is described by Piaget about her daughter: Observation 138 repeated. Lucien, at 0;8 (10), likewise, examines a new doll which I hang from the hood of her bassinet. She looks at it for a long time, touches it, then feels it by touching its feet, clothes, head, etc. She then ventures to grasp it, which makes the hood sway. She then pulls the doll while watching the effects of this movement. Then she returns to the doll, holds it in one hand while striking it with the other, sucks it and shakes it while holding it above her and finally shakes it by moving its legs. Afterwards she strikes it without holding it, then grasps the string by which it hangs and gently swings it with the other hand. She then becomes very much interested in this slight swinging movement which is new to her and repeats it indefinitely. (Piaget 1936, English translation 1956, 256)

With tertiary circular reactions, new means are discovered or invented in the fifth and sixth stages. Through active experimentation, the child proves to be a little scientist and experiments “to see” what happens if he or she repeats the movements that led to an interesting result. He/she no longer repeats them as they are, but scales them, and varies them in order to discover the fluctuations of the result itself. In short, the child creates a new scheme with which to achieve his/her purpose that could not be achieved with the old scheme. For example:

3  J. Watson (1976, 332) highlights how these contingent relationships in which the child discovers that “doing A” “provokes B”, are the basis of what he calls a playful scheme that attracts towards the interaction with the caregivers will take the form of a real play.

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At 1;1 (19), likewise, Jacqueline places her red ball on the ground and waits to see it roll. She repeats the attempt five or six times and reveals a lively interest in the object’s slightest movement. Then she puts it down and gives it a slight push with her fingers: the ball rolls better. She then repeats the experiment while pushing harder and harder. (Piaget 1936, English translation 1956, 271)

Afterward (the sixth stage), the child is able to invent new means by the mental combination of already used schemes. Even without being a convinced Piagetian, it must be noted that the child does not work solely on the basis of the principle of reward. There are no maternal caresses here as a reward, there is no greater security in staying close to the beloved object, it is not a strictly contingent behavior to avoid failure and seek success. There is too much evidence of the determination with which the child pursues the goal despite the frustrations; there is too much evidence that he/she always tries to go further, a little further, trying to change something, always intrigued by new aspects of reality. Many years ago, psychoanalysts, with Klein (1932), coined the term “Epistemophilic instinct” as a need to know, possess, and control what happens inside the mother’s body. Piaget talked about functional assimilation–accommodation invariants and frequently used the digestive metaphor to talk about intelligence. The human organism feeds on stimuli that must be properly digested, that is, processed through the principles of assimilation and accommodation. The search for these stimuli is, at least in part, driven by an interest in interesting situations or effects. But what is meant by “hungry for stimuli”? There is no doubt, according to neuroscience studies, that the amount and type of stimuli that reach the brain are able to modify the synapses. The phenomenon of pruning, for example, concerns connections that are no longer used, such as linguistic sounds that are not used in the mother tongue spoken at home (Cheour et al. 1998). There is no doubt that early stimulation for a child is indispensable for its physical and mental health, as studies on mother–child relationships show. In the case that we are dealing with, this hunger for stimuli concerns a particular category represented by those spectacles intéressants wonderfully described by Piaget. These are undoubtedly strange phenomena, not encountered before, and for one reason or another, they arouse interest. Their active research by the child suggests that they are a source of pleasure and that cognitive activities, even very early ones, are driven, at least in part, by an “aesthetic” principle. This principle does not concern activities directly related to the satisfaction of some primary need, but rather seems to be connected to two fundamental lessons. First, the child realises that if he operates in a certain way, reality conforms to some of his expectations, and second, other expectations must be modified if he wants to produce interesting results. Thus, in order to join the cap to the opening of the bottle, the expectation must not be that “the cap remains attached to the bottle simply by bringing it closer and pressing it,” but that it is necessary to “bring the cap closer to the bottle,” “press it in,” and at the same time “produce a screwing action”. The child does not do all this for a practical purpose, such as to cap the bottle so as not

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to let the water out, but because this activity is interesting and produces pleasant effects in itself. There have been and will be many other activities that produce pleasant effects “in themselves” such as moving bells, making and reproducing a noise by grabbing a page of newspaper, pressing keys to see images or hear music. But again, why are these activities so pleasant? Repetition, an activity that becomes necessary to produce the same physical effects, shows the child how much reality can be mastered and how much he is able to obtain what he wants from it. The pleasure of feeling a cause and controlling reality may perhaps be considered a just reward, but it is achieved through so many impotent tests, so many failures that it seems an insufficient explanation. Moreover: when the goal has finally been achieved, the child does not get on the winner’s podium, because there is still something that can be modified and verified: a different bottle, a closing system, this time made with a cap to slip “inside” the opening, for example. It is therefore a potentially interminable activity, at least within the behavioral state in which the child is, made of interest and pleasure, for the sake of seeing the same effects appear, of the sense de maitrise of a reality that has finally become predictable and contingent: if doing A, it provokes B, perhaps, by virtue of homeoretic circularity, the child can try to obtain C by doing A, or even obtain B by doing D, because the activity of repetition leads before or after to the need to vary (generalizing assimilation).4 It seems unlikely that this activity that proceeds through obstacles and failures is the sign of childhood omnipotence or the need for control over reality. Curiosity, interest, pleasure, and fun suggest a different hypothesis. In my opinion, the answer is to be found in the relationship between “constancy and variability,” “repetition and variation”, “norm and deviation.” The link between repetition and variation has been extensively documented by research on the cognitive development of the child (Macchi Cassia et al. 2004). If we consider the life of the newborn and then of the child on the side of the cognitive sphere, we find in it two different types of experiences that are closely related to each other. The first experience consists in building constancies, the second in researching and exploring variability. These two experiences are so fundamental and so persistent in the course of development that they seem to constitute real cognitive functions. Developments in infant research in recent decades, attained by means of even more sophisticated technology, have made it possible to discover how, from birth, the newborn already has expectations about the world. These expectations are partly derived from the experiences of the fetus during intrauterine life, such as reactions to auditory, gustatory, olfactory or even visual stimuli, and from the possibility of keeping them in mind. In this way, life before birth enables the newborn to recognize the stimuli (for example, the maternal voice) that have occurred during prenatal life. The newborn also seems to have highly adaptive innate predispositions, such as

4  Generalizing assimilation is the function that allows the child to generalize patterns of action from the relationship with the single object to relationships with other objects that have some resemblance to the original one.

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a preference for the human face, for simple and regular figures, for certain rhythmic structures, and for certain contact with soft and fluffy surfaces. As expectations toward the world are those that influence perception and orient conduct, but are also destined to be cyclically disappointed by experience, in this period of life is clearly visible a model that will accompany all human development, namely the periodic alternation between the formation of expectations toward reality, the violation of these expectations and the formation of new expectations changed. This model, which includes the sense of frustration and disappointment resulting from not being able to achieve one’s goals, allows us to observe how the cognitive, perceptual, and emotional aspects of development are mixed and mutually interacting. There is a great deal of experimental evidence for how the child comes to build or extract constants from the variability and multiplicity of experiences. Intersensory coordination allows regular associations to be built between stimuli present in the environment. Already at birth, newborns orient their sight toward the localization of a sound (Mendelson and Haith 1976) and, at 4 months of age, they are capable of transmodal perception, in fact, they visually recognize objects explored only by hand (Streri and Spelke 1988). Both intersensory coordination and transmodal perception therefore reduce variability. Learning a kind of statistical regularity between events and properties of things is another way to build constancy. This has been documented by research on the perception of the succession of figures: the child, while still very young (2–8 months of age), is able to perceive common elements among the different figures presented. This capacity develops until the child acquires at 7 months an inductive generalization of rules. For example, he/she learns that, in a succession of images, after an image with a dog with a tail, one with a dog without a tail always appears (Kirkham et al. 2002). The construction of perceptual constancies and an early ability to categorize are also observable in the ability of the newborn to treat similarly different objects or to grasp relevant dimensions on the basis of which to categorize the stimulus. Initially (at birth), he/she builds constancy from very “generic” types of figures (e.g., he/she distinguishes “open” figures from “closed” figures), at 3 months he/she knows how to distinguish between more articulated figures (such as different types of circles or triangles) and seven complex objects such as puppets (Macchi Cassia et al. 2004). Finally, on the level of social knowledge, the newborn can express a spontaneous preference for the human face. The recognition of the human face is an example of the activity of categorization and perceptive constancy because it allows the newborn to recognize a face (until then presented frontally) even when it is oriented 45° (Macchi Cassia et al. 2004). This evidence shows that, from birth, there is an intense activity to reduce multiplicity and variability through the ability to treat some stimuli as similar to others and as different from others. Some authors, such as Bornstein (1984) and Cohen (1991), argue that categorization is a fundamentally innate capacity that develops through a process of quantitative enrichment.

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On the other hand, the same ability to build constancies and extract a probabilistic structure from events leads the child to take an interest in and stare at what violates the learned statistical regularity. The experimental evidence in this regard comes from those studies that have adopted the technique of visual habituation. When a stimulus, or very similar stimuli, are presented several times, a decrease in fixation times can be observed. If then a totally new stimulus is presented together with the one already known, there is a spontaneous tendency of the child to prefer it. The fact that habituation occurs even when stimuli with small variations are presented shows a certain generalizing activity on the part of the child and that the stimulus, to be considered new and worthy of interest as belonging to an “unknown” category, must contain a sufficient level of discrepancy. Interest in variability and novelty takes on a specific characteristic in the case of breach of expectation. In this case, the child reacts with surprise (gazes longer) at “impossible” events, compared with those considered “possible”. As early as 5 months of age, the child is surprised by the fact that an object, which he expects to see appear partially because he has a screen in front of him, appears whole, and vice versa, that an object, which should instead be completely occluded by a screen, is instead partially visible (Baillargeon and Graber 1987). In conclusion, the cognitive activities of the child, on the one hand, are aimed at building constancies or regularity on reality; on the other hand, they lead him/her to take an interest in what violates this same constancy and regularity that he/she has built. It is the same need to make reality simpler and therefore more predictable that, although it leads him to reduce variability, also pushes him to take an interest in what is new and unexpected. The human organism seems to get bored or addicted to stimuli already known and then seeks out the new, which must be “chewed” and transformed into categories. The two processes are inextricably linked because it is not possible to construct constancies and grasp redundancies and repetitions except from variability. On the other hand, it is not possible to try to discover variability, transgressions, and differences, except from constancies and repetitions. As constancy and variability are relative concepts, they change in relation to the way the child’s learning continues. There are some phenomena that are new but also quite similar to known phenomena, and can therefore fall within categories already built. But at a certain point, the child discovers something different whose diversity can no longer be included in the kind of constancy he/she had learned to know. If, for example, a child of 8 months is presented with the image of a dog, then a tiger, then a cow, and then an elephant, at a certain point, the habituation process is triggered because, despite the differences, all the animals repeat the four-legged module, but the interest could rise again if the image of a butterfly is presented (Macchi Cassia et al. 2004). Constancy and variability cannot be defined except in relation to each other and are always relative and contextualized concepts. The processes leading to the construction of constancy and the search for variability can be conceived as real cognitive functions also on the basis of studies on the cerebral hemispheres from which it results that they have a specific location. The left hemisphere is superior in the use of a multiplicity of descriptive systems that are already fully formed within the individual’s cognitive repertoire. The right

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hemisphere, on the other hand, is more decisive in the processing of stimuli to which none of the pre-existing descriptive systems possessed by the person’s cognitive repertoire can be applied. When a stimulus, for example, a word, is presented several times, the left hemisphere always remains active and the right hemisphere, on the contrary, is activated only in the face of a stimulus or a new task and decreases its activation as a stimulus or a task becomes routine through practice (Goldberg and Costa 1981; Martin et al. 1997). All these studies allow us to understand how the search for the interesting or pleasant effects is part of a predisposition that is almost ready from birth, thanks to which the child, having discovered by chance an interesting phenomenon, tries to reproduce it again and again until he wants to find something that is different. If the child is guided by the search for what he finds pleasant, curious and interesting, this suggests the hypothesis that there might be an early ability to appreciate the differences between what appears to him as beautiful and what is not beautiful. Zeki (1999), who follows a neuro-aesthetic approach, has studied the regions of the brain that are activated by the sight of beautiful and ugly images. The regions involved in both cases are the orbitofrontal and the motor regions of the cortex, but the images judged beautiful and therefore experienced with a sense of pleasantness activate the orbitofrontal area more than the motor area, whereas images judged to be ugly activate the motor areas more than the orbitofrontal ones. It seems that the motor area is activated more in front of the ugly images so that the organism is ready to move away from an ugly stimulus that is considered potentially dangerous. Studies such as these have the merit of highlighting how important the aesthetic issue is for cognitive adaptation and development as well as for emotional development and how there are cortical systems already sensitive to this type of experience. The fact that pleasure and knowledge are, during certain behavioral states, so closely linked as to form a single process, suggests the existence of a principle of “productive pleasure,” as important as the much more well-known “ pleasure principle,” This principle states that the desire to know reality in order to predict it and try to master it is just as important as the desire to love and be loved and outlines the idea of a human being as interested in simplifying to find constancies as in complicating to find variability. The emotion of surprise is the sign of the start of an interest in the new and the basis of production and creativity.5 Bruner has repeatedly stressed the concept that knowledge, and especially creative knowledge, goes “beyond the information given” because it implies a presupposition with respect to the information that makes it “constructed” by the subject rather than simply “received.” With the concept of “productive surprise,” used to define creativity, Bruner (1962) and Bruner and Sherwood (1976) wanted to highlight first of all the importance of being surprised, because it comes from having grasped something that violates normality. The ability to be surprised is 5  Lorenz (1976) speaks, about some animals (such as the crow corvus corax or, among mammals, the rat epimys norvegicus), about the curiosity as “an irresistible longing for new objects” not aimed at satisfying a primary need. Unlike humans, in animals, however, this curiosity is limited to particular periods of development.

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fundamental when you have to find the exception within the rule, but to do this you need to take a particular attitude toward reality. Surprise may not remain so, but may suggest a search for a framework to account for this irregularity. Making surprise productive, therefore, means moving from the attentive phase of emotional and cognitive activation, when one is surprised, to an exploratory phase that produces hypotheses, new ideas, new stories. It is a little like Sherlock Holmes, who can see small inconsistencies in the room where a murder was committed, where others cannot find anything abnormal. If the ability to be amazed involves the knowledge of the norm, in experienced people it is of such a deep level that it allows even the smallest irregularity to be grasped. The concept I propose here of “productive pleasure” is very much linked to the notion of productive surprise. However, it refers to a hedonic dimension that has usually been underestimated because pleasure has always been conceptualized with a search for satisfaction, with the classic curve of a bell that leads, immediately after the acme, to satisfaction and quietness. The pleasure of production does not have this trend, it is a pleasure that is not aimed at reaching a peak of this type. It could be called the pleasure of producing, like the artist who builds up a painting. It is a pleasure aimed at a purpose where satisfaction is coupled with the creation of new skills, is driven toward the discovery of new aspects of reality, develops throughout life and, under favorable conditions, accompanies cognitive activities, study and work. Productive pleasure is can be experienced at different times in life. During elementary school it is similar to what Erikson (1950) called industriousness. During adulthood it has many points of contact with the concept of generativity. The concept of flow elaborated by Csikszentmihalyi (1990), consisting in a state of complete absorption into a compelling activity, a state of altered consciousness in which one forgets about the external world, is a further example. Experiencing productive pleasure is not exempt from concomitant feelings of frustration, albeit slight, or from a sense of effort, even if tolerable, because productive pleasure takes the form of a creative activity that is not necessarily sliding and without obstacles. However, the discovery of being faced with a new, interesting, and not disturbing fact, the perception of being able to reproduce it on occasion and to make this part of their skills, the glimpse that this new fact may have further possible links with other experiences, all this brings a pleasure that is precisely able to adequately reward the path taken. It is also interesting to note that the concept of “productive pleasure” has some aspects in common with what Cacioppo and Petty (1982) have called the need for cognition, meant as the need to understand and give meaning to the experience of the world. According to these authors it is a personality variable that leads people to engage in complex cognitive activities and have fun thinking. These people would have the ability to perceive as ambiguous situations that are apparently normal and clear, and this perception would constitute in them an intrinsic motivation to know, in order to achieve greater cognitive clarity.

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Playing with Constancy and Variability But back to the circular reactions. The term circular reaction does not account for everything that happens during these activities because this circularity does not produce a closed circle, of the type forward–backward–forward, where one always returns to the starting point, but an open circle, homeoretic, that is, a spiral. Through feedback mechanisms that push us to go ahead and try new paths, progressively, each roundabout produces an increase in level, which allows the transition from primary to secondary to tertiary circular reactions and finally to the birth of preoperative intelligence. At this point two very interesting paths in the development of the child open up. These two paths concern the activities that the child performs in two different mental and social states. Both courses are to do with playing with constancy and variability. But the first path concerns what the child does when he or she is alone, even if in a safe situation. In this condition he/she manifests not only his/her attitude as a “little scientist” but also that of a puer ludens, and, although Piaget only mentioned it occasionally, as an artist. The second path concerns a different mental–social state: not only does the child feel safe but he/she also actively interacts with the parent. Together they form an extraordinary couple for the games and inventions they know how to find, with their discoveries, excitement, laughter, and wonders. They seem to be a pair of jugglers capable of transforming any activity into an artistic creation. Let us examine these two paths.

The Child as a Scientist–Artist We saw that from the third stage of sensomotor development something particularly fascinating happened. The child begins to consider interesting what is less known (Piaget 1945): what is interesting and unknown is considered “a show,” something that pleases to admire, review, and reproduce. It is a pleasure that brings him closer to the play of exercise, the pleasure of the function itself (autotelic), but also with something more of the sensory pleasure related to “seeing again” or “feeling again.” This conduct is the basis of imitation and play. In fact, the imitation is built from the attempt to continue something that seemed interesting, for example, to continue a sound listened to. Piaget continues to use, even in Play, Dream and Imitation in Childhood, written 9 years after the study on the origin of intelligence, the expression of spectacles intéressants, and expressly states that the child, at this stage, enjoys imitating (Piaget 1945, 21, 29). Not only that, but the methods of making an interesting show last, of an imitative nature, give rise to a proper playful activity. Piaget writes: The action on things, which begins with each new secondary reaction, in a context of objective interest and intentional accommodation, often even of anxiety (as when the child sways new hanging objects or shakes new toys which produce sound) will thus unfailingly become

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In other words, there are times when there is a relaxation of adaptive effort and maintenance or exercise and the activities are carried out for the sole pleasure of dominating them and obtaining a sense of virtuosity and power that is characteristic of the play. Activities that are first carried out with a serious and attentive air, when the child is almost concerned for the result, are then used on every occasion almost to the point of laughter. Not only that, when the method succeeds, the child uses it with the same pleasure of being a cause, even without believing it, just for fun. For example: OBS. 61. At o; 7 (13), after learning to remove an obstacle to gain his objective, T. began to enjoy this kind of exercise. When several times in succession I put my hand or a piece of cardboard between him and the toy he desired, he reached the stage of momentarily forgetting the toy and pushed aside the obstacle, bursting into laughter. What had been intelligent adaptation had thus become play, through transfer of interest to the action itself, regardless of its aim. (Piaget 1945, 92).

In the sixth stage, the playful symbol detaches itself from the ritual in the form of symbolic schemes thanks to a decisive progress in representation. Similarly, at i; 6 (28) she said “avon” (savon = soap), rubbing her hands together and pretending to wash them (without any water). At I; 8 (15) and the following days she pretended she was eating various things, e.g., a piece of paper, saying “Very nice.” (Piaget 1945, 96)

The link that is beginning to be established among pleasure, adaptive knowledge, and playful processes is a continuation of that thread that we saw started with the spectacles intéressants. At first, the child is intrigued, then he/she feels pleasure in determining certain effects on reality, but the purpose is always that of knowledge. But very soon, when he/she has become able to master certain contingencies (if I do A then B follows), these can only be activated for him/herself. The exercise play therefore represents a continuation of the spectacles intéressants. When the child moves from exercise to symbolic play, he or she extends the pleasure of repetition and variation to a new level. While in presymbolic play, the productive pleasure is the pleasure of discovery, which in turn leads to discovering the constraints of reality, in symbolic play, pleasure is that of inventing reality by creating a possible world in which, through imagination, things can be virtually manipulated, arriving nonetheless at the discovery of other constraints. In this case, the constraints are given by the distance between the two worlds (the “real” one and the invented one) and by the need to find correspondence. The symbolic play not only manipulates physical reality but also, and above all, the meanings: the same object, a small matchbox, stops being such and becomes the signifier of a toy car (which does not exist but is pretended) that behaves “like” a toy car, including the “brum brum” made by the child using the mouth. There are obvious advantages on the cognitive level in carrying out activities like these: the signifier separates itself from the meaning and this helps to accept a certain conventionality that will then be represented by play with rules, linguistic signs, images, etc. Now that the child learns to work with symbols and to refer

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to realities that are not present, but that could become present, he/she learns to appreciate the enormous power of the imagination, and, distinguishing the real from the possible, he/she also tries to bring the two together: there are possible things that are impossible and possible things that can be done; he/she discovers how to make learning fruitful and how to “put them back into circulation” in a world that he/she commands. In these activities, which produce pleasure and are so essential for his/her happiness, the constant attention to reality is not lost, even through imitation, whether this is represented by the mask of Zorro or the mother’s shoes. This connection to reality is used to detach oneself from it and recreate it through playful symbolism, putting it at the service of the imagination and the possible world created in play. The symbolic play introduces a specific way of representing reality that has been defined as a representation based on verisimilitude. In this type of likelihood we can distinguish some aspects. I intend to use for this purpose the conceptual distinction introduced by Popper (Popper and Eccels 1977) among three “Worlds.” World 1 is about living beings and entities of the physical world—processes, forces, and force fields—that interact with each other and are subject to physical laws. World 2 is about mental states that interact with bodies and can include both a toothache and desires, emotions, will, and cognitions. World 3 concerns all the products of the human mind, such as explanatory myths, scientific theories, social institutions, and works of art. Many objects of World 3 such as monuments, paintings, etc., belong to both World 1 and World 2. On the basis of this distinction, three achievements can be made by the child. 1. Links with reality (World 1). In the example of the child playing with the matchbox as if it were a toy car that moves and makes brum brum, the child assumes that it is sufficient to play some common features that the matchbox has with a car: being a more or less square object, being in motion, and making noise. These analogies are sufficient to create a plausible representation of a  car, so plausible and “conventional” that in a mime game any adult or child of the same age could grasp its meaning. In play, even the slightest correspondence to reality is fundamental and this allows the imagination so that the box of matches, because it has a similar shape to a machine, can become a machine. The symbolic play, therefore, even if it submits reality to the imagination, finds in reality the indispensable basis for this miracle to take place. In constructing a plausible representation of reality, play builds a possible world different from reality and endowed with a certain coherence (a small squared object + that moves + that makes brum brum), but also of a correspondence with reality (cars are squared objects, they move and make noise). In this world, the matchbox is very different from the car, but, at the same time, it forms an imitative representation of it. Or if the game has a plot, as in the case of the “pretend that I was the doctor who opened your belly and that you cried,” you must behave in a manner consistent and you can decide to cry, scream, beg, twist, but in short, you cannot start laughing unless you do not want to change game. In fact the behaviour of the partner must be coherent to the play because if it is

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not coherent it violates the rule of the play. That means that either the partner adapts himself to the rules of the play or he changes the type of play. 2. Creation of a second reality (World 2). Symbolic play is a gym where you sweat with pleasure to invent a new reality, without forgetting the old one, with rules, constraints, and a consistency that must be maintained until you change game. This virtual world that children enjoy inventing and living in never becomes a prison, at least, they do not suffer from serious disorders, because it is a world in which you can enter and exit. Here, the pleasure of control is experienced at a temporarily imaginary level because the game can be interrupted in order to invent other rules and then started again and, if playing as a diver guarding the treasure in the depths of the ocean the mother arrives with a freshly squeezed orange juice, the child drinks it, albeit with disappointment (divers at the bottom of the sea should not drink orange juice). The possibility of entering and exiting the play allows a child to modify at will his/her own plots and rules and, together with others, to agree in advance and during the work variations that make the game exciting for some new personal need that is emerging. How important this is can be monitored in the reflections that the symbolic play will have on the nascent narrative capacity that will need a plot but also corrections in order to arrive at a satisfactory final product in which one can drive cars, open bellies, and hunt bears just as if all this were true, correcting, and modifying as a tailor those aspects that seem unlikely and inconsistent with the representation that the child has of the world. 3. Progressive modification of the relationships between World 1 and World 2. Symbolic play is a process that is in development and accompanies the growth of a child. The activity of repeating and varying gives rise to a new homeoretic circle, a spiral that leads further and further toward more complex play, because it must represent a reality that appears less and less simple. Therefore, regarding the sense of surprise at the disappearance of an object, the child can play at making objects disappear or putting a blanket on his/her head to make the world and him/herself disappear and reappear in the eyes of adults, and then participate tastefully in the game of hide-and-seek, maybe learning how things can be done as a joke and that, in the joke, a wrong thing can become right, if it is done in a certain way. In this way, we amplify what Popper called World 2, but we also begin to create World 3 through convergence with science and art. Some games are transformed into artistic forms, such as pretending or playing roles, which can naturally lead to theatrical activity. Childhood art thus becomes a form of conciliation between two opposing needs: that of adapting to material and social reality and that of symbolically expressing conflicts, emotions, personal feelings that would otherwise not be expressed. Piaget writes: The study of childish play and especially symbolic play (usually called imagination play) shows that the child’s thought and emotional joy are oriented in two opposite directions. On the one hand, the material or social reality to which the child must adapt and which imposes its laws, its rules, its means of expression,

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is to this reality that social and moral feelings, conceptual thought socialized with the collective means of expression constituted by language, submit to. But on the other hand there is the experience of the “I,” its conflicts, unconscious desires, worries, joys and anxieties and these are the individual realities often not adapted and always inexpressible with the only collective means of knowledge and that require a particular means of expression. Now the symbolic game is nothing more than this mode of expression thanks to the use of representative objects and mental images that, one and the other, complete the language. The essential functions of the symbolic game are to allow the realization of desires, the compensation for the real, the free satisfaction of subjective needs: in short, the expansion of the ego distinct from material and social reality. The first manifestations of childish art must be conceived as successive attempts to reconcile the tendencies of the symbolic game with those that characterise the adapted forms of activity or, if one prefers, as the synthesis of the expression of the “I” and submission to reality. Whether it is a drawing or a play, the child simultaneously tries to satisfy his needs and adapt to objects rather than to other subjects (my English translation, Piaget 1954, 22–23). Aesthetic feelings, already present in the first perceptive activities as pleasant or unpleasant experiences, accompany, along with the growth, the cognitive activity; for example, when you appreciate the beauty of a reasoning and, to qualify a theory, you use adjectives such as elegant, slender, farraginous, bright, harmonious, satisfying, poor, etc. (Piaget 1954; Tiezzi 1998). Some children’s games can then be transformed into an apprenticeship in adult work; others become subject to strict rules, such as in chess; still others procedures to invent scientific models, working hypotheses; others finally abandon their status of play to become obsessions, bonds of addiction to the pleasure of risk.6

A Nice Couple of Artists We have so far followed the development of the child in his/her search for knowledge, showing how close it is to the play through which he/she comes to control at will the bitonality “repetition–variation” according to a homeoretic path. I described this process by implying that the child was alone before his/her discoveries, even if 6  In his pioneering text on the game (homo ludens) which appeared in Germany in 1939, Johan Huizinga (1939) highlighted for the first time the ramifications of this activity and its interconnections with other human cultural activities such as law, war, art, knowledge, religion, as well as of course sport and competition, whether these are riddles, philosophical cements, solving puzzles, or interrogations. The same legal agony in court can be seen as a game and in general all those human situations that take on a magical guise. As human activities often have a polemological character, sometimes aimed at controlling and exercising power, it is clear that the game can be transformed into an activity so intertwined with culture as to be very difficult to distinguish them from other so-called serious activities.

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in the company of the parent. It is perhaps no coincidence that many of Piaget’s observations were the result of his interaction with his children. What I have tried to summarize so far is only one part of the story, another part, or the other part, is related to the primary social interaction. In fact, the child who is moved by productive pleasure presupposes, as has already been said, a state of mind in which attachment is placed on the off. The child is relatively safe, satisfied, not distracted from internal annoyances or fears of what might come from the outside world. The parent or a reassuring substitute is nearby and he can freely devote himself to other interests and let himself be moved by his curiosity. But what happens when the child’s interest is directed toward his or her caregiver, perhaps because he or she is solicited by him or her? What experiences does he/her have when he/she interacts with him or her? Primary interaction is much more than the satisfaction of a need and what happens in it is very relevant to the theme of this study. Winnicott (1971) had already observed how the child goes from playing alone (in the presence of his mother) to playing with his mother. Since the 1970s, studies on the early skills of the child have been accompanied by those on the early stages of parent–child interaction, where the parent, in most cases, is the mother. The analysis of this type of interaction, carried out under observational and experimental conditions, has revealed an impressive amount of concordant elements. There are moments of temporal synchronization between the two partners with signals, responses, and anticipation of responses that take too long to be the effect of conscious processing and that, to use Daniel Stern’s words, happen in the world of the fraction of a second (Stern 2004). During most of the first year of life, the adult–infant couple “hooks up” and “unhooks,” synchronizes and alternates, practicing physical, physiological, and emotional tuning by means of multimodal expressive signals. This synchronization, which is miraculous to say the least, is undoubtedly facilitated by the child’s innate skills, such as those to which I have previously referred, but from which I would like to recall once again the preference for human faces, the ability to imitate relationships, cross-modal interpretation, the ability to provide appropriate emotional responses, the sensitivity to certain types of facial expression, sound, or singing vocalization. But on the other hand, there is a predisposition for parental care and play. Today we know that maternal competence may be lacking in cases of her own personal history of insecure attachment. But, in cases of safe attachment, the mother has an extremely important emotional heritage and empathy to properly care for her child. This mother–child relationship, which has been studied and analyzed in many ways and for which the indispensable basis for healthy growth has been recognized, has also been explored as a creative situation for the emergence of a sense of beauty. Ellen Dissanayake (2001) studied baby talk, making it the cradle for the development of a creative process. Baby talk is a dyadic interaction, within which the parent uses, toward the child, a subtle, light, aspirated, singing-like vocal register with varied melodic contours. It is a poetic protolanguage with sentences of 3–5  s in length and with verses composed of themes with variations. In addition to this special vocal behavior, the parent stimulates and keeps the child’s attention aroused through the use of rhythmic movements of the body, either proximal (touching, tapping, caressing, kissing, hugging) or distal (facial expressions, looking at the child

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uninterruptedly, smiling for a long time, opening the mouth with the eyes open and the eyebrows raised, making characteristic head movements, making repeated, exaggerated, elaborate movements). The child, from the first 6  weeks of life, responds with modulated vocalizations formed by repeated vowels (cooing) and then with consonants and vowels (babbling or lallation) with imitative mimicry, smiling, and kicking. This behavior is interpreted by the parent as a positive reaction, a kind of joyful game, which has the effect of reinforcing the behavior of the parent. According to Dissanayake, early mother–child interaction is highly adaptive, given the infant’s immaturity at birth. Reconnecting to the knowledge on the phylogenetic development of the human being, it underlines that, in the course of evolution, the conquest of the erect gait has contributed to altering the female basin, reconfiguring and restricting the delivery channel and allowing a partial mobility of the maternal pubic symphysis. On the other hand, there has also been an increase in brain mass and cranial capacity. These two transformations have made human childbirth more difficult and progressively, over millennia, have reduced gestation times. But this in turn has created the conditions for a prematurity that makes the little man a much more helpless creature than in other primates. The mother–child interaction therefore became a cradle that had the function of prolonging “outside” what had been prematurely interrupted “inside.” This primary situation not only had the result of prolonging the protection, in a safe environment, of nourishing, building a bond between two people separated but united by an intense emotional current. It wasn’t just that, it was much more. Something that has extraordinarily formed on the basis of intellectual development. Meanwhile, it can be observed that in the first weeks of life the child responds positively to the request for eye contact, intimacy, and involvement in regular and predictable interactions that have a reassuring and soothing effect, such as mild vocalizations, facial expressions of tenderness, gently rhythmic caresses, and small taps. But when he reaches the age of 4–5 months, there is a desire for more excitement and even situations that change this regularity, such as the game of the “peekaboo.”7 This new type of interaction has the effect of introducing variation and improving homeostatic balance, self-regulation, and interaction, but also of helping the child to distinguish his or her action from the object to which it is directed, for the purpose for which it is intended, by the tools to be used to achieve it. In short, those basic components of the grammar of action that are the basis of the understanding of intentionality, of the involvement in mutual relations, and of narrative development are modified (Dissanayake 2001). This passage from a monotonic phase (repetition), to a bitonic phase (repetition + variation), is marked by a process that Dissanayake calls ritualization.

7  The description that Bruner and Sherwood (1976) give of the game of “Peekaboo” is similar. It shows mastery of the game of constancy and variability by the mother and the child. This is evident where the authors write that what the child seems to learn is not the basic rules of the game, but the range of possible variations within the set of rules […] the child learns the regularity of the concept itself through learning the variables that express it” (Bruner and Sherwood 1976, 348).

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In the course of ritualization, the signals, extracted from their context in which they functioned as parts of a rhythmic and repetitive continuum, become signals capable of being distinguished by their specificity and thus of attracting attention; if in the context they were “ordinary,” outside the context they take the form of “extra-­ ordinary.” In the mother–child interaction, movements such as combing, touching softly,  smiling, and caressing, which normally mean relaxation, pleasure, friendship, if simplified and regularly organized, repeated, exaggerated or elaborate, express a message of intense but new affection. This process of ritualization in humans is composed of distinct patterns. The first of these is repetition, such as repetition of words, phrases or vocal melodies. The second is formalization, i.e., schematization, stereotyping or simplification. The third is dynamic variation, for example, a rubbing on the hand from light to strong, from slow to fast; exaggeration is a fourth pattern, consisting in the extension of the action in time or space, in the formation of caricatures, in the extremization of certain facial expressions. Finally, around 4–5 months this variation can take the form of manipulation of expectation (as in the “peekaboo”). The passage from repetition to formalization serves to create a rhythm, a well-­ defined succession and well perceived because simplified. But with dynamic variation and exaggeration something changes: the rhythm of the ticking, the force of the rubbing, the expression of the face with modification of the mouth, eyebrows, and eyes, constitute a variation that attracts attention both when it arrives and when it ends and ordinariness is resumed. But, after the ordinariness, very soon the bitonality that allows the formation of new expectations begins again and this variation becomes excited expectation for the novelty. In the manipulation of expectation, bitonality is performed with the explicit intent of surprising, that is to create a difference between what is normal and what is not, but in a way that is not always repeated, because even the repetition of a bitonal succession can end up being monotonous. Thus, the intensification of the stimulus, the creation of a deviation from the norm, the creation of uncertainty, surprise, and exaggerated facial expressions are all “variations in variations” that lead the child to compare the difference between what happens and what is expected and to separate a mental world from a physical one. In short, Dissanayake identifies in the primary interaction a structure articulated on: 1. An expectation linked to the characteristic, socially contingent, and predictable way, according to which social interaction develops. 2. A contrast or a rupture that cognitively signals a difference; the formation of a divide between what is expected and what actually happens. It is important to point out that this divide can occur in two different ways: (a) In a first way the divide is such that it can be filled and this allows for an experience of effectiveness and re-establishment of order. (b) In a second way, the gap is such that the child cannot resolve it or resolves it inadequately and this causes frustration and stress.

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3. Depending on how the second phase (a or b) has been resolved, an emotional and physiological transformation of a positive type (resonance, excitement, amazement, and being on the same wavelength) or a negative type (overload, overexcitement, and an inability to escape) comes to life (Dissanayake 2001, 115). According to Dissanayake, the picture just described is the basis of artistic creation. This is not intended as the creation of a valuable artistic product, but as behavior that can, as it cannot, lead to an artistic product. The author calls this process of formation artification: Artification is a behavioral predisposition evolved in members of the homo genus to intentionally make the ordinary extra-ordinary (i.e., to make it “special”) using a series of aesthetic–artistic operations (formalization, etc.) especially in circumstances that we consider important (Dissanayake 2001, 85).

According to the scholar, beyond the medium artists set in motion an analogous type of artification on the surrounding environment: formalize, repeat with variation, exaggerate transforming ordinary things into extra-ordinary ones. The processes of articulation allow us to direct our attention towards all that is new, to sustain emotions and interest, to facilitate memory, to satisfy the need for interdependence, belonging, competence and sense (Dissanayake 2001). If we compare Piaget’s detailed description of the exploratory activity of children and the theorization of the mother–child relationship that Dissanayake formulates from studies on primary interaction, we can see some common elements. A first element is above all represented by the theme of repetition and variation. It accompanies both circular relations, with their possibilities of generalization and homeorhesis, and baby talk. A second aspect is that both the discovery behavior and the bond-building behavior lead to the emergence of play. Finally, a third aspect is represented by the component of pleasantness, present both in the discovery and in the mother–child relationship. Repeating and varying to know and then to play and have fun are all elements that suggest the importance of the aesthetic dimension of development, in particular of early development. This bitonality, present in the exploration of the environment and in the mother–child interaction, that becomes from simple to complicated, from slow to fast, and vice versa, is a structure that we learn to know in those human activities that are so “serious” and so important, as science and art are.

When Play Becomes a Tale When the child begins to play symbolically, he also begins to say the first words that quickly take on the structure and form of a real language. According to Corballis (2015) play is one of those human activities (but not only human) that over the millennia has helped to generate the narrative. Play is phylogenetically antecedent to narrative, it is linked to conduct necessary for survival such as hunting, social relations, rituality, and satisfaction of basic needs such as sexuality. Play, of course, is

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an activity that, among its aims, has that of fun and pleasure and sometimes is closely related to fiction. This fiction allows you to do one thing instead of another and then introduces some form of symbolism. Pretending is about communicating. As a fiction, the game is the basis of art because in art symbolic activity is exercised, the pretending, the split between signifier and meaning. Although play unites us with many animal species (from dogs to parrots to gibbons), when it continues in the narrative it is a typically human acquisition. According to Corballis, the narrative brings, compared with the game, the use of time (the past and the future are added to the present time), a complex linguistic sequential structure and the presence of the Other to whom to tell. On the ontogenetic level, the narrative progressively carries out, linguistically, some of the functions originally performed by the game. Those dolls that were animated and given a voice become, in the narrative, characters of a comedy whose author, narrator, and animator is the same child who previously went down into the arena to play with them. The child still loves to play with his/her dolls, manipulating them, giving them a voice, and making them act within an improvised plot. But when these dolls become the characters of a story, they begin to have a life of their own. You could say that (fictional) storytelling is a verbalized game. While in symbolic play, the child, with his own body, or through dolls, or even mumbling, represents the adult world with the narration, and thanks to language, acquires the most suitable tools for an even more sophisticated representation, because it is now possible to separate narrator and character. As happened with play and then with drawing to show the parents to receive approval, in narration the aesthetic question also comes to the foreground because pleasure and knowledge become an inseparable combination. The question that the presymbolic, symbolic, and narrative children have in front of them is that of the knowledge of reality in its real or imagined aspects but also pleasantness: a beautiful play, a beautiful drawing, a beautiful story. The ability to narrate, still very much cluttered within a few words, is developed through activities in which parents also participate, such as guided reading of books, conversations on past events, and the transmission of practices accompanied by verbal instructions. As language development provides the child with the necessary tools to give voice to his or her thoughts, the ability to tell becomes a tool through which to order events. This happens thanks to another important function that is the story of the past, that is the social exercise of autobiographical memory. Beyond the complexity of this process, on which we have dwelt at length in previous chapters, what I would simply like to point out now is how much the adult world strives for the child to exercise this function by teaching him to tell a story that, at least formally, respects the principles of sincerity, relevance, and completeness. The development of the ability to tell stories passes, since childhood, through an education to know how to say, for example, what you ate at nursery, what you did on Sunday, how you grazed your knee. The child is invited to tell facts, some of which are perfectly known by the parents, who ask the child to also tell them to see if he remembers them and if he knows how to tell them. Telling about the past is an

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important function of narration, which we could call “historical” and which, when it takes on a more explicit form and is enriched by a methodological apparatus, becomes a real scientific activity. This is particularly evident in mother–child conversations about the past, where it becomes important to clarify or communicate what happened, how, and why. The role of the mother, in the following example, is illuminating of how much that principle of correspondence is constantly recalled by adults: Mom: Remember last week when we went out for ice cream with the daddy? We went in Mom’s old car. Mom’s white car and you got on top of what? Child: At a picnic table. Mom: At a picnic table and then what happened? Child: I fell down. Mom: You fell down. Child Yes. Mom: Where did we go? Mom:To the doctor. Mom: Didn’t we actually go to the doctor’s whereabouts? Child: At the hospital. Mom: At the hospital. Llaible and Panfile (2009, 173–174)

It is evident here that the mother makes the child understand that we are within a narrative genre in which corresponding to facts is absolutely essential and that in this search for correspondence it is important to agree with some rules according to which it is not enough to say that you are at the doctor’s, if in fact you are in hospital. Even if the answer is true, because we’ve really been to a doctor’s office, it is not complete either. Grice’s formula recommends being informative and sufficiently detailed and here is the mother who teaches her daughter this formula. The role of the adult in nursery and kindergartens can also be fundamental, through conversation, to help the child express moods and develop increasingly complex forms of social understanding. In this sense, the narrative understanding is born from the first verbal interactions between children and between child and adult aimed at understanding mental states.8 Strengthened by the confluence of these two components, memory and play, stories then become a new tool through which to master constancy and variability. They have a regulatory side, similar to the principle of repetition, and a problematic side or side of violation of normality, similar to the principle of variability. Once the human being has mastered this device, he can construct narratives of increasing complexity, thus having a very powerful means of understanding reality, whether physical or mental (Hutto 2008), memorizing it or inventing it and talking about it with others. The story of memories is a specific genre where adherence to reality is fundamental, but it can easily merge with other genres, such as fantasy stories. When the problem of the truth of the facts is not under discussion and the state of the real

 See for these aspects: Grazzani and colleagues (2016a, b).

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world is suspended, it is possible to enter a possible world like the one offered by the playful narrative. In this case, the child is not required to comply with those criteria of correspondence and adequacy of details. And when, after seeing Cinderella, the child impressed by the wickedness of the stepsisters says “I will kick the stepsisters,” the parent realizes that the child has grasped an important meaning of the story (the envious behavior of the stepsisters) but also that this fantasy story for the child is a continuation of the symbolic play at a linguistic level and that the child is playing with the words, maneuvering the characters as if they were toys. For these reasons, the parent would not dream of reminding him/her that this is a fairy tale, but merely smiles and approves. The ability to master different narrative genres, such as the historical–descriptive and the playful, is achieved by the child quite early precisely because this distinction is linked to the development of symbolism and autobiographical memory. In two studies conducted by our research group (Bartoli et al. 2018; Fioretti et al. 2019), 160 fourth- and fifth-grade children were asked to write a story. A first group of 39 children were asked to tell the story of a trip made in the past (“Tell us about the most beautiful trip made with your class”), a second group of 62 children were asked to talk about an ideal trip (“Tell us what would be the trip of your dreams”), and a third group of 59 children were asked to complete a story that started like this: “Once upon a time there was a child who was very curious and brave. He had always lived in the same city and wanted to visit another city that he had always been told about. One day he called his best friends and together they decided to leave. Walk walk finally arrived in that city. They went through a big door and …”. The history of the most beautiful excursion was mainly carried out according to the descriptive historical genre. See, for example, the following: An April day to travel One day in April we were leaving for Venice. I was going with my family and I was excited because there were so many boats and colorful houses, kind and generous people. We wanted to go for a walk. When we arrived at the square, we saw a very tall and large statue. When it arrived evening we went to a famous restaurant we dined a family pizza. And we kept walking, there was a spring party with many people with colorful clothes and flowers with pink, yellow, purple, even red and white colors. After a few days we left for Paris. It is my favorite city there were many very popular people, including Ariana Grande, Lady Gaga etc., people who come from France. My parents and I tried on the clothes and found my cousin, and I realized it was a dream. I saw a gentleman talking in a strange way and to finish we ate another pizza but with fresh tomatoes.

As you can see, this story is not without evaluations of the things seen, comments on their emotional reactions (I was excited), adjectives that allow us to grasp the point of view of the narrator and the overall tone is frankly enthusiastic about the experience. However, the trip is described through the use of diachronically placed propositions, no complications are exposed, and, even if not without subordinates, history is basically a temporal succession of events. The dream trip story was also descriptive: New York

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One day I would like to go to New York with my family: my father, my mother and my brothers. With them I would like to see one of the tallest skyscrapers in New York because I have not seen even one and also because I do not know how tall they are, maybe they have even 100 floors or maybe even 170. If there is, I’d like to eat sushi because I’ve never eaten it before and I’d like to try it. For the night I would like to sleep in a five-star hotel, I would like to stay a week. I’d like to buy a souvenir that would be the twin towers.

This second story is, as is natural, exposed in a desiring way and there is no lack of justification by the narrator of his desires, based on the fact that he wants what he could never do or feel. This story also presents a succession of desired events concerning seeing a new and great thing, eating an exotic thing, sleeping in the most luxurious hotel, and buying souvenirs about something that no longer exists, but that has symbolized a city. In the stories with an incipit the children produced two types of stories. About 50% produced a descriptive story, whereas another 50% produced an adventurous story. Descriptive stories were 57% realistic and 43% fantastic, whereas adventurous stories were only 17% realistic and 83% fantastic. The adventurous stories with fantastic content were, as can be guessed, full of imaginary characters from the world of fairy tales, such as magicians, giants, and fairies, and presented the typical structure of folklore with complications, spells, dangers, and problems to be solved. But even realistic adventurous stories were very different from those describing trips made or desired. Here is an example of a realistic adventure story: [it happened …] That one of the children fell into a manhole, the others stopped and called for help, the first found a rope but it was too short, the second a ladder, but it was also too short, the third had found a road that went underground and thought that maybe he would take her to his best friend, and in fact found him and together they came out of that stinking manhole.

In this case, a unique episode is told, centered on the rescue of a friend, and the story has the classic trend that starts with the problem (the incipit works as an initial orientation), several attempts to solve it, up to the positive conclusions. You can see in this story that there have been two failed attempts by two different friends, until the third finds the solution. Although the first two friends were looking for a solution based on trying to arrive at the bottom of the manhole  by means of some instrument, the third one adopts a new solution, such as that of the road. Undoubtedly, one perceives the influence of a narrative tradition such as the use of the number three (three rehearsals, three brothers, etc.) and this story as a whole also has a closeness to the kind of story about the descent into hell and return. But what is striking is that the mere fact of not asking to tell a story about an experience made or even desired and to start the incipit with “once upon a time” pushes the child to build a plot, a story with a problem according to some sort of aesthetic criteria such as the succession normality–problem–solution, the various attempts to solve, the use of the number three, the use of a well-defined genre, the theme of rescue, and that of friendship. In short, it could be observed that the request to tell the first type of story (the most beautiful trip made), pushes the child to search for their memories, to choose one, the most beautiful, and to tell it. The effort seems to be to demonstrate why this

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memory is beautiful. For this purpose, reference is made to evidence taken from the description of Venice and Paris, their inhabitants, great monuments, the famous restaurant, the festival, the pop stars, etc. It is therefore clear that there is an aesthetic intention centered on the need to make the experience described “special.” The request to tell the second story, even if it is a story of fantasy, is also centered on the description of beautiful and special things (skyscrapers, sushi, hotels, souvenirs) made such because never experienced. But it is only by asking to complete a story (in this case in the third person) with an incipit, which, however, did not pose a problem (even if the entrance to an unknown city gate with friends with whom one wants to live an adventure experience may have been an evocative element), that a plot and an aesthetic based not on the description of beautiful things but on an aesthetic canon of a formal type can be created. In short, it is as if the child, as early as the age of 9, was able to use different types of stories, one more based on description and one on the plot, the first more shifted to correspondence, the second more on the side of consistency. Genre change is of course part of wider cultural models and it is essential that the child and parents master them. There are languages, such as the ones used in the script that appear to be real instructions on how to do things. They seek correspondence with reality and make unambiguous use of words. In the adult world, in many cases, this is exactly what is required: in testimonies in court, in medical history, in the account of a quarrel made to the lawyer, not only ambiguity but clarity is required, not reticence but completeness of the details, even if not numerically exaggerated, sincerity, etc. There are also other languages that are used to play with words and create metaphors, where it is necessary to remain ambiguous to give space to the inventiveness of the listener, referring to completely fantastic worlds that seem to introduce the writer and the reader in a toy store. The use of these languages, by the child, is supported by the understanding that the adult world has for the recreational dimension, the taste for comedy, the sense of the funny, the search for the unlikely, and oddities. Expressed in other words: to tell the truth, take a decision respecting the commitments made, remembering things, paying attention to what happens, are all conducts that take due account of reality. On the contrary, inventing fantasy stories, trying to make people laugh with unusual combinations (a pink elephant in a ballet skirt dancing on a woolen thread), are ways of playing with words or using them to make games. So language can become again play, verbal acrobats, style exercises such as those of Queneau (1947) where the “same” event is told according to different language games. Two narrative genres emerge, therefore, that refer to two important modes of knowledge. Vygotskij (1967), in his study of imagination and art in childhood, described them in terms of reproductive and imaginative memory. Although the first is based on the criterion of correspondence to reality, the second is linked to all those activities, such as the game, that involve a “putting in brackets” of the absoluteness of reality (Cometa 2017) and that find in the imagination their main cognitive process. Through the imagination, the child starts from reality to build new mental products that establish a new type of relationship with reality. These mental

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products can then take the form of real inventions and therefore new objects of reality. Not only that, but the imagination allows the emotions to find their own conscious representation which, in turn, can affect the same emotional tonality. Finally, imagination allows the person to go out of the ordinary through exaggeration. Exaggeration is the function of the imaginative process that allows differences to be highlighted by exaggerating them and thus facilitates the discovery of new aspects of reality. In short, these two modes of knowledge, reproductive memory and imaginative memory, which articulate in different ways the relationships among World 1, World 2, and World 3, become part of the way in which a person remembers and thinks and plays a central role in the constitution of narrative processes.

Conclusion In summary, we can draw some provisional conclusions from what we have discussed so far. 1. In the course of its development, the human being builds increasingly sophisticated solutions to the problem of constancy variability. These solutions constitute different ways of relating these two instances. Constancy and variability are not an antinomy because the variability of the real pushes us to build constancies, but these, in the face of further experiences, allow us to grasp what is different, that is, variability. 2. When the child is in a vigilant and quiet mental state, free from discomfort, he can have those experiences that I have defined as “productive pleasure.” This can be done under two different conditions: (a) the child “is capable of being alone” because he “knows that he is not alone”, and therefore, free from fear, he ventures to discover the unknown; (b) the child turns his or her search to the figure of attachment or makes his or her search to the figure of attachment, not primarily for the purpose of comfort, but for the pleasure of playing. This facilitates the cognitive conquests of this period. This experience will continue to be important throughout life because, even as an adult, being able to enter the state of productive pleasure allows us to have a pleasant experience of work, study, research, and fatigue itself. The notion of productive pleasure contains two important aspects. The first is that it is a pleasure, so it is an aesthetic experience that is not forced, as Winnicott would say (1971), by instinctual impulses. This allows the child to experience a pleasure that does not require an orgasm and that contains an aesthetic sense in itself. Moreover, this experience poses a question that remains open in the study of human development: how much does human, practical and/or speculative activity obey aesthetic criteria? How much are these criteria pre-eminent with respect to other criteria of a purely logical, moral, legal, utilitarian, and social nature?

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The second aspect concerns productivity. This pleasure produces a certain result. The fact that it arises from surprise, and therefore from the new, presupposes prior knowledge and produces a transformation of the new into the known. 3. At a certain point, some of these manifestations are prolonged in play because the pleasure of repeating the interesting effects becomes an end in itself. But this activity for its own sake is an extraordinarily productive activity! Thanks to play, pleasure becomes first of all reproductive because it leads to repetition of the interesting effects and this leads not only to take possession of the same activity but also to modify something in the repetition, which produces a generalization. This is how the same object can be used in a variety of ways because, theoretically, there are infinite aspects or points of view with which to look at things. 4. When play from presymbolic to symbolic becomes narrative, it constitutes a new form of life. In fact, the playful narration not only allows us to symbolically maneuver the characters through the language and tone of the voice, but it also unites with the other path of development of the narration, such as that of the autobiographical memory. Play is by its nature less bound than memory to respect reality, but only to a certain extent, because it constitutes an elaboration and a transformation and, to be satisfactory, it must be able to take into account this reality precisely to modify it. From the game comes a new type of narration or, perhaps it is better to say a new property of the narration that could not have been discovered if memory were the only origin. It is, as we have seen, the property that in some cases the narration has, precisely because it is an extension of the symbolic game: that of inventing new worlds to go beyond the given contingent, to imagine new hypotheses, to build and reconstruct reality or even just for the sake of doing it or living there. At the same time, thanks to this derivation from play, narration leads us to inhabit and animate the worlds of others because we speak of the Other, because we speak to an Other, and because finally I and the Other exchange their roles as narrator and narratee. 5. Narrative therefore has an important origin in play, but memory is just as important in producing the stories of memories and bringing out the memories told. It is thanks to these two important origins that the stories are so committed to respecting, at least to a certain extent, both the criteria of correspondence (because this is what is asked of the memory, even if it does not guarantee it to us) and those of coherence and verisimilitude (because it is the task of the symbolic game to create a new world endowed with its own laws). But the distinction between these two criteria in stories is so labile that Lejeune, wanting to distinguish autobiography from autobiographical novel, has found no other way but to start from an act of trust in what the narrator writes he is (autobiographical pact), that is the assurance given by the author that what is said corresponds to what actually happened. Respect for reality (correspondence) and safeguarding one’s own unity (coherence) seem to be the two poles on which the human person is always called to find new solutions. In conclusion, play and memory constantly pose to the narrative the problem of correspondence with reality and verisimilitude, that is, of something that might be true because it is similar to reality, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be. This means

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that the union of memory and play leads to the expansion of the notion of memory and autobiographical narrative and the very concept of narrative understanding that now comes to include imagination and the use of possibility without which it would not be possible to formulate hypotheses on the meanings to be given. And that will be dealt with in the next chapter.

References Baillargeon, R., & Graber, M. (1987). Where’s the rabbit? 5.5-month-old infants’ representation of the height of a hidden object. Cognitive Development, 2(4), 375–392. Bartoli, E., Elmi, B., Pascuzzi, D., & Smorti, A. (2018). Gamification in tourism. Psychology and Behavioral Science International Journal, 8(3). https://doi.org/10.19080/ PBSIJ.2018.08.555740. Bornstein, M. H. (1984). A descriptive taxonomy of psychological categories used by infants. In C. Sophian (Ed.), Origins of cognitive skills (pp. 312–338). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Brazelton, T. B. (1992). Touchpoints. Birth to 3. Cambridge: Da Capo Press. Bruner, J. (1962). On knowing: Essays for the left hand. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Bruner, J., & Sherwood, V. (1976). Peekaboo and the learning of rule structures. In J.  Bruner, A.  Jolly, & K.  Silva (Eds.), Play: Its role in development and evolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Cacioppo, J. T., & Petty, R. E. (1982). The need for cognition. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 42(1), 116–131. Cheour, M., Ceponiene, R., Lehtokoski, A., Luuk, A., Allik, J., Alho, K., & Näätänen, R. (1998). Development of language—specific phoneme representations in the infant brain. Nature Neuroscience, 5(1), 351–353. Cohen, L.  B. (1991). Infant attention: An information processing approach. In M.  J. Weiss & P. R. Zelazo (Eds.), Newborn attention: Biological constraints and the influence of the experience (pp. 1–21). Norwood, NJ: Ablex. Cometa, M. (2017). Perché le storie ci aiutano a vivere. Milan: Cortina. Corballis, M.  C. (2015). The wandering mind. What the brain does when you’re not looking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1990). Flow: The psychology of optimal experience. New  York: Harper Perennial. Dissanayake, E. (2001). Becoming homo aestheticus: Sources of aesthetic imagination in mother-­ infant interactions. In H. Porter Abbott (Ed.), On the origin of fictions: Interdisciplinary perspective. SubStance, 30(1), 85–103. Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York: Norton. Fioretti, C., Pascuzzi, D., & Smorti, A. (2019). Narrative and narrativization of a journey: Differences between personal and fictional narratives. The Open Psychology Journal, 12(1), 205–215. Goldberg, E., & Costa, L. D. (1981). Hemisphere differences in the acquisition and use of descriptive systems. Brain Language, 14(1), 144–173. Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., Agliati, A., & Brazzelli, E. (2016a). How to foster toddlers’ mental-­ state talk, emotion understanding, and prosocial behavior: A conversation-based intervention at nursery school. Infancy, 21(2), 199–227. Grazzani, I., Ornaghi, V., & Brockmeier, J. (2016b). Conversation on mental states at nursery: Promoting social cognition in early childhood. The European Journal of Developmental Psychology, 13(5), 563–581. Huizinga, J. (1939). Homo Ludens: Proeve Ener Bepaling Van Het Spelelement Der Cultuur. Groningen: Wolters-Noordhoff.

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Hutto, D.  D. (2008). The narrative practice hypothesis: Clarifications and implications. Philosophical Explorations, 11(3), 175–192. Kirkham, N. Z., Slemmer, J. A., & Johnson, S. P. (2002). Visual statistical learning in infancy: Evidence for a domain general learning mechanism. Cognition, 83(2), 35–42. Klein, M. (1932). The psychoanalysis of children. London: The Institute of Psychoanalysis. Llaible, D., & Panfile, T. (2009). Mother-child reminiscing in the context of secure attachment relationships. In J. A. Quas & R. Fivush (Eds.), Emotion and memory in development (pp. 173–174). Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lorenz, K. (1976). Studies in animal and human behavior. In J. Bruner, A. Jolly, & K. Silva (Eds.), Play: Its role in development and evolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Macchi Cassia, V., Valenza, E., & Simion, F. (2004). Lo sviluppo cognitivo. Dalle teorie classiche ai nuovi orientamenti. Bologna: Il Mulino. Martin, A., Wiggs, C. L., & Weisberg, J. (1997). Modulation of human medial temporal lobe activity by form, meaning or experience. Hippocampus, 7, 587–593. Mendelson, M. J., & Haith, M. M. (1976). The relation between non-nutritive sucking and visual information processing in the human newborn. Child Development, 46, 1025–1029. Piaget, J. (1936). The naissance of the intelligence chez l’enfant. Neuchâtel: Delachaux and Niestlé. English Edition: Piaget, J. (1952). The origin of intelligence in children (translated by M. Cook). New York: International University Press. Piaget, J. (1945). La formation du symbole chez l’enfant. Neuchâtel: Delachaux and Niestlé. English Edition: Piaget, J. (1951). Play, dream and imitation in childhood (translated by C. Gattegno, & F. M. Hotgson). New York: Norton. Piaget, J. (1954). L’education artistique et la psychologie de l’enfant. In E. Ziegfeld (Ed.), Art et education, recueil d’essais (pp. 22–23). Paris: Unesco. Popper, K. R., & Eccels, J. C. (1977). The self and its brain. Berlin: Springer. Queneau, R. (1947). Exercises de Style. Paris: Gallimard. English Edition: Queneau, R. (1979). Exercises in style. London: John Calder. Siegel, D. (1999). The developing mind: Toward a neurobiology of interpersonal experience. New York: Guilford Press. Stern, W. (2004). The present moment in psychotherapy and everyday life. New York: Norton. Streri, A., & Spelke, E. S. (1988). Haptic perception of objects in infancy. Cognitive Psychology, 20, 1–23. Tiezzi, E. (1998). La Bellezza e la scienza. Milan: Cortina. Vygotsky, L. S. (1967). Voobrazhenie i tvorchestvo v detskom vozraste. Moscow: Prosveshchenie. English Edition: Vygotsky, L. S. (2004). Imagination and creativity in childhood. Journal of Russian and East European Psychology, 42(1), 7–97. Watson, J. (1976). Smiling, cooing and the game. In J. Bruner, A. Jolly, & K. Silva (Eds.), Play: Its role in development and evolution. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. Winnicott, D. (1958). The capacity to be alone. International Journal of Psychoanalysis, 395, 416–420. Winnicott, D. (1971). Playing and reality. London: Tavistock. Zeki, S. (1999). Inner vision, an exploration of art and the brain. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Chapter 7

The “Playful” Narrative

Beauty Between Rules and Deviations

Fig. 7.1  Leonardo: the Vitruvian man

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 A. Smorti, Telling to Understand, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43161-7_7

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“Know that the center of the open ends of the limbs is the navel and the space between the legs is an equilateral triangle.” This is what Leonardo writes in the text accompanying the drawing called “Vitruvian Man”, a work that combines in itself the scientific study of the human body and the search for the beauty of its geometric proportions, as the human figure, represented in two different positions, is inscribed inside a circle and a square. This masterpiece (see Fig. 7.1), designed by Leonardo da Vinci around 1490, has become the emblem, one could now say the logo, of all those ideas in which science and art are united together toward a common project. Painting, geometry, and anatomy are here admirably coordinated and focused toward the idea of aesthetic–scientific perfection represented by the canon. The previous chapter, examining the development of cognitive and relational processes activated by play highlighted how cognitive activity is aimed at addressing and elaborating the relationship between constancy and variability. These two concepts are important for the subject of this book, which is dedicated to narrative understanding. They are used to study the cognitive and social development of the person. Constancy and variability are part of people’s lives and their way of making natural and human reality simpler and, at the same time, more complex. Now we will see that the question of constancy and variability is also present in art, which, according to Dissanayake, is the successful development of that artification that finds its origin in play. The study of artistic creation, especially from the point of view of its canons, lead us to reflect on what cognitive and aesthetic processes originate when faced with the violation of the canon and how in science this dialectic between normality and violation has been addressed. Passing through this road that puts art and science in continuity makes it easier to understand the way in which narratives, veritable artistic and scientific creations, face the same problem through specific and characteristic tools and offer narrative comprehension irreplaceable working tools. In the twentieth century the debate on the relationship between art and science was brought to the foreground especially by the work of C.P. Snow (1959), The Two Cultures, where the author observes the delay with which, in the nineteenth century, the classical American and English intellectual culture had become aware of the scientific and intellectual revolution that was taking place. In the history of the relationship between art and science, however, there have been at least two periods in which artists and scientists have collaborated harmoniously with each other. First of all, we can trace the history of Vienna between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, admirably frescoed by Kandel (2012), where art and science were dialogued through an extraordinary symphony of voices. In that environment and in those years, Klimt was fascinated by the discoveries of the structure of the cell and reproduced it as an ornamental image in the clothes of Adele Bloch-Bauer, and, together with Schiele and Kokoschka penetrated, through painting, into the instinctive life of man; Freud followed the same path, discovering a new way of cure that consisted in asking people to talk about themselves; the Vienna School of Medicine, where Freud and Schnitzler were trained, played a key role in the effort to unify knowledge; the Vienna Circle generated philosophers of the stature of Rudolf

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Carnap and Kurt Gödel, whereas Ludwig Wittgenstein spoke of the language of science and conceived the possibility of creating a grammar common to science and the arts; the school of economics was founded by Carl Menger and Ludwig von Mises; Mahler prepared the transition from the first (Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven) to the second (Arnold Schonberg and Anton Webern) music school in Vienna; in architecture, Otto Wagner, Joseph Maria Olbrich, and Adolf Loos reacted to the Gothic Renaissance and Baroque taste with a functional style, grasping the importance of transport in the urban dimension and providing Vienna with very rich infrastructures; in literature, Arthur Schnitzler and Hugo von Hofmannsthal founded the Jung Wien group, while philosophers, scientists, writers, musicians, and painters met in Vienna’s cafés and Berta Zuckerkandl’s lounges. The Vienna of that period represents in some way a moment of conciliation between two cultures that seem to return to dialogue after a long period of interruption following the Renaissance period, which was the first and perhaps the greatest example of this reciprocal and fruitful exchange. During the Renaissance, the idea of beauty was closely linked to mathematics and the belief that nature itself, including the human body, was built according to numerical rules. At the same time as applying mathematics to music, research into optics and static mechanics helped to give studies on perspective a scientific basis and to promote the development of architecture. The new theory on perspective was at the same time a safeguard of the principle of correspondence to reality, because it was reproduced with precision, and a guarantee for the subjective point of view of those who are spectators of that reality, it was imitation and invention (Eco 2004, 180). An example of the great influence that mathematics had on the idea of beauty is the golden section. As it could also be calculated through the Fibonacci series and this series was observable in different natural forms, it was believed that nature spoke the language of mathematics and that nature itself, and not only the abstract universes created by mathematics, were built according to a single formula. The relationship between sizes that is expressed by the golden section represents a harmonious difference that is summarized in an invariant, the basis for the construction of geometric relationships that are aesthetically perfect in painting, sculpture, and architecture. In accordance with the classical Greek tradition, inaugurated by Polycletus and recalled by Leon Battista Alberti (De statue Tabulae dimensionum hominis) in the mid-fifteenth century, it was believed to have found a fixed formula at the basis of the body’s proportions.1 Thus, Leonardo tried to obtain a perfect human figure starting from the golden measure through which the “golden” 1  Leon Battista Alberti’s theory of beauty (see his De Statua) is based on the concept of concinnitas, which he defines as that “harmony of all the members in the unity of which he is a fan founded on a precise law so that nothing can be added or removed or changed except for the worse.” This law is identified in the mathematical proportion that, by establishing a series of relationships ordered according to the principle of equivalence, allows, according to the Vitruvian notion of symmetry,

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proportions can be established between the different parts of the body and between focal points such as genitals, navels, and the jugular. The idea of a canonical measure that Vitruvian man so admirably represents, did not fail to influence the following centuries. In fact, in the nineteenth century, the Belgian astronomer and statistician Adolphe-Jacques Lambert Quetelet conceived the idea of the average man from which the statistical deviations of individuals could be calculated and, in the architectural field, in the twentieth century, Le Corbusier, with his “modulor,” defined, not by chance from the study of Greek architecture, the anthropometric geometrical body measurements on the basis of which to design the ideal house.2 What is striking about Renaissance aesthetics is the importance given to a mathematical rule on how to compute the relationship between different measurements (of body parts, buildings, etc.). This rule leads to the creation of a number through which you can construct any other harmonic shape or draw larger or smaller figures all similar to this rule. A rule that dominates not only human constructions but also divine ones such as nature: leaves, shells, trees, and flowers, like Chinese boxes, reproduce inside them modules that obey the same mathematical relationship. However, the rules of divine proportion were well suited to establishing forms when the human figure was depicted in conditions, as it were, ideal, in a state of emotional purity. But what to do when men are to be depicted with their entire emotional load? Leonardo, in his “Treatise on Painting” suggested making figures “in such an act that it is sufficient to demonstrate what the figure has in the soul otherwise your art is not laudable,” and through his studies of physiognomy sought to define the nature of men, their vices and complications. Emotional expressions can only be physically represented by defining deviations from a harmonic rule. The pictorial or sculptural representation of a human figure with its own emotional load, whether it be of anger, fear, or sadness, can only be based on another principle that goes beyond the golden rules of proportions and, for example, renounces symmetry. When it comes to depicting different states of mind, but also different ideas of man, the great theory of divine proportion is no longer sufficient. If we want to represent the ugliness, say, of a decomposed rotten man with a nauseous smell, or that of a deformed person, this representation can still be beautiful, even if what is represented does not respect the canons of proportion (Eco 2007, 19). Thus, with mannerisms, the rules of classical beauty are dissolved. Calculations and measurability cease to be criteria of objectivity, the distinction between proportion and disproportion falls between form and formlessness and the representation

to bring the relationship between all the elements of the whole back to a certain number (Desideri and Cantelli 2015, 134). 2  In 1943, Le Corbusier conducted research into the creation of construction standards. This research gave rise to a system of measurements of the average man (height 183 cm, or 226 cm with the arm raised), called the modulor. Like Leonardo’s Vitruvian man, the modulor is placed inside a grid composed of rectangular squares and circles built according to the Fibonacci series (Le Corbusier 1951).

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of beauty grows in complexity; it refers to the imagination rather than the intellect. To use the words of Umberto Eco: During the Renaissance, the so-called ‘Great Theory’—according to which Beauty consists in the proportion of the parts—reached a high level of perfection. At the same time, however, in Renaissance culture and mentality, there came into being centrifugal forces whose thrust was towards a disquieting, nebulous and surprising Beauty. This was a dynamic movement which only for explanatory purposes can be boiled down to academic categories like Classicism, Mannerism, Baroque or Rococo. What ought to be emphasised is the fluid character of a cultural process that permeated the arts and society alike, a process that only briefly and often only apparently crystallised into set clearly defined figures. Thus it happened that the Renaissance ‘manner’ spilled over into Mannerism; that progress in mathematics and the related sciences, used during the Renaissance to relaunch the Great Theory, led to the discovery of harmonies more complex and disturbing than foreseen; that dedication to knowledge was not expressed by the tranquility of the soul, but by its gloomy and melancholic aspects; and that the progress of knowledge removed man from the centre of the world, hurling him into some peripheral point of Creation. None of this should surprise us. From a social point of view, the Renaissance was incapable of settling down into an equilibrium that was not fragile and transient: the image of the ideal city, of the new Athens, was corroded from the inside by factors that were to lead to political catastrophe for Italy, as well as economic and financial ruin. (Eco 2004, English edition 2010, 2015–2016)

Mannerism goes beyond Alberti’s idea of art as an imitation of nature to enhance artistic inventiveness and creativity, which can move away, if necessary, from the alleged verisimilitude with what is represented. Thus, the artist, in the name of a creative license, is freed from the laws of correct representation, determining the decline of the cult of the concinnitas (Desideri and Cantelli 2015). Paintings appear with figures of altered proportions that stretch and twist as if they did not have bones and joints, S-shaped serpentine figures that, so disproportionate and irrationally moved, give the composition a dramatic tension unknown to fifteenth-century balance. “In this way we witness the triumph of the illogical and prodigious that the mannerisms carry out by germinating the forms from each other through the aggregation of heterogeneous and incongruous elements until they produce real hybrid beings” (Desideri and Cantelli 2015, 160). This new principle that allows us to break away from the canon of symmetry is that of “exaggeration.” Gombrich and Kris (1938) have made it the subject of analysis and, examining the caricatures of Agostino Carracci, have found that, like the paintings of Peter Bruegel the Elder, El Greco, and the post-impressionists van Gogh and Munch, they were characterized by the use of “exaggeration” (Kandel 2012). However, “exaggeration” is a relative concept and cannot be formulated or practiced, except in relation to an idea of proportion or symmetry. The conclusion that then emerges clearly is that the representation of reality in the artistic field involves a reference to both the idea of canon and that of deviation from it. The Indian neuroscientist V.S. Ramachandran, director of the Center for Brain and Cognition at UC, San Diego, has attempted to define the aesthetic experience through the formulation of some laws. According to this scientist, many art forms are successful because they involve a deliberate exaggeration and distortion

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designed to arouse our curiosity and produce a satisfying emotional response from our brain (Ramachandran and Hirstein 1999, 436). Ramachandran repeatedly highlights the need for the artistic stimulus to excite the nervous system. Not all distortions achieve this result, only those exaggerated stimuli signals that satisfy the principle of “peak displacement” (peak shift effect). According to this principle, the artist behaves in the production of his work like the visual system. When representing a figure with his emotions, he abstracts the essential characteristics of an image and discards redundant or insignificant information. In the case of the face painting, for example, the artist provides an exaggerated signal stimulus by unconsciously taking the average of all the faces, subtracting this average from the character’s face, and then amplifying the difference. To use the same words as the author (see also Fig. 7.1): How does this principle of peak displacement work and how does it relate to patterns of perceptual recognition and aesthetic preference? Consider how an experienced designer produces a caricature of a famous face, for example, that of Nixon. What he does (unconsciously) is to take the average of all faces, subtract the average from Nixon’s face (it makes the difference between Nixon’s face and all other faces) and then amplifies the differences to produce a caricature. The final result, of course, is a drawing that is even more likely in Nixon than the original […] This brings us to the aphorism “All art is caricature.” (Ramachandran and Hirstein 1999, 17–18) (see Fig. 7.2).

The principle of shifting the peak underlines the fact that aesthetic appreciation can also arise from the violation of symmetry: the masterpieces of Oskar Kokoschka and Egon Schiele are sometimes disturbing because of their bilateral irregularities and the internal conflicts that these irregularities communicate. Bruegel, El Greco, Schiele, and Kokoschka, the hellish monstrosities of Bosch, are many examples of the principle of peak displacement. In short, this principle presupposes a cognitive elaboration at the base of the aesthetic experience that works through a sort of

Fig. 7.2  Photography and caricature by Richard Nixon: an example of the principle of “peak displacement”

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comparison between amplified deviations from the media. The central notion of a “deviation from the average of deviations” emerges, which exerts on the spectator an effect that is as important as that determined by harmonic beauty. Gombrich understood this well when he wrote: Art is an institution we turn to when we want to experience the shock of a surprise. We feel this want because we sense that it is good for us in a while to receive a healthy jolt every now and then. Otherwise we could also too easily get stuck in a rut and could no longer adapt to the new demands life is apt to make on us. The biological function of art, in other words, is that of rehearsal, a training of mental gymnastics which increases our tolerance for the unexpected. (Gombrich 1987, 211)

From Art to Science The principle of shifting the peak appears to have a meaning that goes beyond the artistic and aesthetic sphere. There is a science that has made these two concepts its pillars. In statistics, this problem has been mathematically set through the concept of standard deviation (SD) or mean squared deviation, which is the result of the square root of the mean of the sum of the differences from the mean, in a sample of measurements, of each number, raised to the square.



DS =

∑(x − M) N

2



In this formula we start by calculating, for a given order of phenomena, an average, for example, the average of the IQ of Italian third-grade students in the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children (WISC) test. The average (M) constitutes a centralization index and tells us the number that makes the members of that population as equal as possible. The normalization of this indicator, in the case of WISC, is 100. Subsequently, we measure how far each student deviates from the average (x − M). If an average of these deviations is made (the elevation to power and the square root do not change the substance of the problem), I get a value that expresses how much on average the eighth-grade students in Italy are different than the intelligence test. This normalized value in the WISC is 15. Thus, if 100 is the average value of the IQ of a population and 15 is its SD, a person who has less than 85 can be considered intellectually insufficient and another person who has more than 115 can be considered intellectually gifted. Of course, this is purely theoretical, because in practice things are much more complex. But if we consider these measures in a purely logical sense, we can see how the concept of standard deviation re-proposes the idea of canon, but this time within the deviation from the norm. It is a way to make abnormality normal, a sort of concession area for those who move away from a rule. By interpreting this formula as a representation of the mental operations that a person performs to analyze reality in all its variability, it can be said that, from the beginning, he or she elaborates a comparison between an average (the pattern of

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memories about a certain type of event) and the individual events encountered. Differences arise from this comparison. All these differences are then outlined in a new average of the differences that is the typical variation. Therefore a person is not compared to a unique fixed point (a precise number, a definitepattern of behaviour, a determinate  aesthetical canon, but to a area of variability inside wich a deviation is possible and accepted. It is a little like what happens with speed limits. A road has a speed limit of 80, but even if you go up to 85, this is acceptable because those five more kilometers are considered the average of the errors that are allowed as random. From what has been said, therefore, four concepts emerge that are important for the purposes of this work. The first is the concept of media, average man, or canon. It is the idea that there is a privileged point that prevails over the others as it better summarizes the similarities among individuals, events, or measures. It can be represented by the golden section, but also, in cognitive terms, by the concept of prototype (Lakoff 1987). Thus, the cow is an animal that better summarizes the properties of mammals than a whale. The second is the average deviation from the average or from the canon. It is not a point but an area of variation that proposes the idea of the average man or of canon or normally, but at a level, so to speak, that is more elastic. This is the reason why tests that are performed on blood values, or statistical representations of growth curves or intelligence tests offer a range of values of normality. If the person has values that fall within this range, there is nothing to worry about; otherwise, a problem arises. The third and the fourth concern the type of deviation of the individual case. If a datum is deviant from the average, it must be examined to know if it is inside or outside the average of the deviation from the average. So the third concept is rapresented by the case in which an event falls inside the standard deviation that is nothing more than a phenomenon that belongs to the norm, in the case in which it falls outside the standard deviation, and this is the fourth concept, it is an anomaly. These concepts are particularly important in narrative understanding, expecially in the face of an unforeseen phenomenon. In fact, although the phenomena that fall into the mean or the mean deviation are calculable and predictable, for some deviations we do not know if they can be made to fall into the mean variation or not. In this second case we do not have, at least at the beginning, tools to classify them. It is here, in my opinion, that we must think creatively, because the human person must go from “recognizing what is already known” to giving a new name to the unknown. We now see how narrative understanding moves to deal with this type of phenomenon.

The Principle of Reducing the Discrepancy So how do narratives deal with what is new and unforeseen? A few decades ago, Schank (Schank and Childers 1988; Schank 1990) made an interesting contribution to the problem by addressing the way in which human beings deal with anomalies

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and use memory and stories to find a creative response to what they do not know. Schank’s work comes at a time when cognitive science was developing and was greatly influenced by the discoveries of artificial intelligence. His contribution is therefore affected by an archival model of memory. However, he had the merit of not remaining bound to this model, recognizing that the production of stories leads to a real reconstruction of the structure of memory. Creating stories plays an irreplaceable role in understanding oneself. Schank writes: We tell stories to describe ourselves, not only so that others can understand who we are but also to understand ourselves. Telling our stories allows us to compile our own personal mythology and the collection of stories we have compiled is to some extent who we are, what we have to say about the world and tells our state of health (1990, 44).

This means that the understanding of what the narrator thinks must take place through the narrator’s production of a story about what he thinks. But where do the stories come from and when do they mainly activate? According to Schank, stories are produced especially when problems arise within the flow of events, an anomaly that indicates the failure of an expectation. Let us see how the process works now. Schank splits it into three main phases.

Phase One: Activation Faced with an Anomaly In the first phase it is assumed that the cognitive system of a person is not yet active, but in a state of habituation or normality. It is also assumed that the person has expectations about how events should happen. At a certain point something happens in the way that was not expected to happen. For the system to be activated in the face of this unexpected event there must be a certain interest and ability to grasp the anomaly. This ability allows us to distinguish the new from the known. In this way, the state of disinterest caused by the habituation is interrupted and the system is activated. After activation, the system can “decide” to ignore the anomaly or start analyzing it. In making this choice, the motivational aspects take on a certain importance. The novelty can be presented in different forms. It can provoke emotional states of fear (anomaly = dangerous stranger), disappointment (frustration of an optimistic expectation), surprise, or curiosity. In all these cases, however, there is a form of pre-perception or expectation toward the world that is not confirmed and this determines a surprise in a positive or negative sense that may or may not push the person to further research the reasons for this problem. Only if you pass this phase can you enter the second phase and analyze the anomaly.

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Phase Two: Analysis of the Anomaly The analysis takes place in the direction of the comparison between old and new and therefore concerns the identification of what makes the anomaly new and interesting. There are three sub-steps at this phase. The first is the question: why did this happen? The second is the attempt to give an explanation, and the third is the intervention of memory. 1. Why did this happen? This question marks the beginning of the interpretation process. It is naturally aroused by the person’s sense of curiosity, but also by their real intention to understand and their ability to ask questions. 2. The attempt to give an explanation indicates the beginning of a path that is the one in which the system tries to relate the discrepancy to a norm. Here we can see at work that discrepancy–standard comparison that we have dwelt on in this chapter. If the abnormal element is part of a “normal variation,” it is not worth analyzing it further. Or it could be nothing more than a special case of something already known. To understand if it is a false anomaly, because in reality it is part of a normal variation or an authentic anomaly, and, in the latter case, to understand more, the intervention of memory may be necessary. 3. Memory intervention. With the third step, the system tries to really move toward what is potentially new. It then uses a mnestic strategy to give an explanation. The memory tries to activate a representation that can facilitate the examination of the anomaly. Or you can look for similar cases of anomalies encountered up to that moment and check what the two events (the old one and the new one) may have in common. In some other cases, anomalies identical to the present one are not found, but anomalies can be remembered for some similar aspects. If the memory can trace the present anomaly back to past anomalies, it paves the way for the creation of a new category. In fact, the two anomalies are similar and this allows a process of generalization. But what format has this anomaly in memory? What form does it take? According to Schank, this anomaly is an anomalous story. The experiences lived are first transformed into stories to give them meaning, then they are indexed under some gist format on the basis of which they can be subsequently searched. These gist stories can be differently centered on past experience. The same event, for example, a day at the beach with his girlfriend, may have been indexed as a quarrel that occurred, as the best bath of the season, as an incredibly hot day. They are therefore condensed stories from a certain point of view.

Phase Three: Create a New Category or Explanation Principle Once the comparison with past experience has been initiated, the analysis of the anomaly can lead to three decisions: 1. The anomaly can be traced back to previous stories already encountered  by examining past stories that relate to events similar to the one to be understood,

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the person realizes that the anomaly is actually not more such because it can be made to fall into a certain category of well known stories. This makes the anomaly a particular case of them. In this case, the process ends and the anomaly is detected as a false anomaly. 2. Or the anomaly cannot be traced back to previous stories, but it is these that must be modified in order to include the anomaly. In this case, the anomaly is real and risks putting in crisis our previous system of stories with which we told particular types of events. However, by modifying these stories, making them more articulated, for example, the anomaly can be integrated and disappear 3. Finally, the anomaly can neither be traced back to previous stories, nor is it sufficient to modify a pre-existing story, but it is necessary to produce a new story in the form of a hypothesis. In this case, a new expectation is formed toward the reality that brings the system to look for forms of confirmation of the hypothesis. A new category of stories is not yet created, but it is prepared be created through the formulation of a hypothesis. Schank sets the example of the script of the restaurant. Suppose a person owns this script. One day, he/she happens to go to Burger King. It constitutes a deviation from the script restaurant that obliges you to modify it (for example: Once eaten, this person could enunciate this rule “all restaurants work according to the script of the restaurant at least that this place where I’ve been is not a Burger King”). Another day, the same person goes to McDonalds. To understand this new deviation he can relate it to the deviation of Burger King and consider both experiences not as a deviation but as a new script, one in the fast food business. There are at least two important points in the whole process. The first is the interest in novelty, which can be directed toward a conservative hypothesis (the event that is happening is part of something already known) or toward an innovative hypothesis (we are faced with a new event that requires new categories). The second is the possibility of obtaining valuable information about the past. It obviously depends on the experiences made and on how the person was able to organize them and learn from them. Having understood what happened in the past is a useful story for analyzing the present. However, according to Schank, a certain amount of creativity is needed to look to the past, that is to say, to be able to understand that a certain story can offer help in interpreting the present. The possibility that a story is useful depends on the way in which the experience was indexed. To this end, it is necessary that past experiences are at least a little generalized so that they are not only kept as reports of specific experiences but have a more general scope. This can happen if they have been organized from multiple points of view. Let us suppose that one day Mario took his son (B) to the zoo (A), but that it started raining in the middle of it (C) and that both of them had to take refuge in a nearby café (D). Let A, B, C, and D be the four components that make up Mario’s day. This experience can be first narrated as a succession A → B → C → D. When this story is stored it could be indexed, say, under four gist formats such as: a visit to the zoo (A′), an afternoon spent with his son (B′), the unpredictability of the season

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(C′), the discovery of good coffee (D′). Now, let A′, B′, C′, and D′ be the gist stories indexed for each specific component of the event. The other events were not necessarily forgotten, but rather put in the background because they were considered less representative. Mario could have organized the memory of that day as A′ and B′ (an afternoon at the zoo with his son), or, in an even more articulate and complete way, through the coordination of multiple points of view A′ and B′ and C′ and D′. In that case, Mario would get a coordination among four gist formats. For example: “finally a day with my son at the zoo (A′ and B′), but, damn it! in the middle here is the rain to ruin everything! (C′). Good thing though that we could repair to a café (D′).” In this way, the experience is preserved as a structure from which to draw different memories because in this structure there is the memory of a trip to the zoo, an afternoon spent with his son, a sudden thunderstorm, etc. Let us assume now that, after this experience, Mario has other experiences that are in some ways similar to the one just described. For example: AX: a trip to the zoo (A) with the child’s class (X) BY: a free afternoon spent with son (B) in the country (Y) CK: look at the weather forecast (C) to go to the sea (K) DJ: a good café (D), where to stop after the cinema (J) Each of these experiences contains possible links with the past A–B–C–D experience. If the A–B–C–D experience has been indexed only as A′ (visit to the zoo), it can be more easily recalled when the next AX event occurs (a trip to the zoo with the child’s class); if it has been indexed as B′ (an afternoon with the child), it could be more easily recalled when BY occurs (a free afternoon spent with the child); if instead the past experience is remembered as C′ (sudden storm), it is with CK that it connects; whereas D′ (the discovery of a new coffee) emerges more easily from the memory if it presents itself as DJ. If, on the contrary, Mario goes on a trip to the zoo with his son’s class (AX) and he has organized the experience A →  B  →  C  →  D as D′ (having discovered a new cafè), this experience will obviously not help him. If, on the contrary, he has remembered the experience from many points of view, it will be used both in the case of the AX event and the BY, CK, or DJ event. For example, having to plan a trip to the seaside and consulting the weather (CK), he might remember the unreliability of the forecasts because, in the memory C′ that comes to mind, there was rain that had not been predicted but also this rain had spoiled an afternoon at the zoo with his son (A′ and B′). In conclusion if a person remembers an experience from many points of view (A′ & B′ & C′ & D′), and if is able to rethink that experience from several points of view, whether he is faced with the event AX or BY or CK or DJ, he always have a fairly general event to use and from which to learn.

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Stories as Tools to Solve the Unexpected Schank’s theory sees at the base of the creative process attention to the anomaly, the interest in giving it a meaning and the search in the memory of stories that are somehow similar. The role of memory in this process is very important. In fact, it contains the countless stories that make up our repertoire of knowledge about the past. When there is something that goes beyond the norm of deviations because it is unexpected, it sets in motion a narrative device in order to understand how and why that deviation could have occurred. These devices are not only invented by the person because they already exist in culture within different consolidated genres. In these genres we can find different ways to manage norm, deviation norm, deviation, and anomalous events. Narrative genres have an influence on the way people build and remember their stories. Jerome Bruner (2003) referred to three important genres, each of which has a specific type of functioning in the way of dealing with the relationship between norm and violation: the literary genre, the legal genre, and the autobiographical genre. Literary narratives have a fairly free course, but, in principle, are subject to constraints if they are to be good narratives: they must prepare the ground so that the reader can understand the type of problem that will emerge later, they must then present the problem and then outline one or more attempts to solve it. But the crucial point of literary narratives is that they must show how a familiar and canonical situation, like that described at the beginning of the story, can generate the unusual. Then, once the unusual has emerged, it must be further explored so that it can be traced back to a family situation that is no longer that of the beginning because we now know that the problem has arisen precisely from that initial situation that we have described. In order to face this task (to trigger the unusual from the familiar, to trigger the familiar from the unusual), literary narratives must free the reader from that sense of closed and established that the familiar can contain and arrange events in such a way that surprise can emerge from the ordinary as a possible variety of the real. They must then build possible worlds and ask the reader to enter them and live in them to explore what the unusual has of familiar and, vice versa, what the familiar has of unusual. Literary novels can of course be different from one another in terms of plot. Booker (2004) attempted to restrict this wide variability to only seven types of recurrent plots in the narratives. They are characterized by the type of difficulty encountered, the figure of the hero, and the course of the story. In the first plot “Overcoming the Monster,” the hero, called to his task of defending the world, lives his initial moment of tranquility and idyll. Soon, however, the monster appears and the clash reveals the initial helplessness of our hero; just as the latter is about to succumb, however, the story has a twist, and the hero, defeating the evil, brings the world back to normal. In the second, “Rags to Riches” the hero, initially oppressed by the evil, called to his task, faces an initial moment of success, soon followed by a crisis. Only toward

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the end of the story does the protagonist reach a new independence and realization and, in the last test, he reaches the final success. “Quest” is the third plot. This plot is characterized by a journey that the hero makes, often with a companion, to face an intolerable situation. During his journey, he faces many difficulties; despite these, however, he will be able to complete his mission by winning the final test. The fourth plot is represented by “Voyage and Return.” In this narrative model, the hero generally falls into another world and is initially fascinated by it. Soon, however, the adventure turns into a dangerous situation with various difficulties. The protagonist, facing the dangers, finally manages to return to his own world. In “Comedy,” the fifth plot, the context of the story is usually a small world where there are many misunderstandings or miscommunications that block the protagonists. The confusion tends to worsen until it almost reaches a negative conclusion, but the events  find a solution thanks to the recognition of facts or things previously unrecognized: once the shadows are dissolved, the intrigue turns into a joyful union of the protagonists. In “Tragedy” the protagonist of the story is initially dissatisfied and he is pushed toward the hope of unusual or forbidden gratification. The hero, however, pursues his project and initially benefits from it, but after gratification comes a sense of frustration that drives him to make mistakes and do bad deeds to safeguard what he has achieved. The events, therefore, are totally beyond the control of the protagonist, who feels in danger and despairs until, because of the forces that he himself has activated, a final act of violence does not destroy him. The last plot, “Rebirth,” tells of a hero who initially falls under an evil power, but he is capable of controlling it without serious problems, at least at first. Later, in fact, the danger emerges and the hero, imprisoned by the evil power, finds himself in a state of living death that does not seem to cease, until the protagonist seems destined to succumb. A miraculous redemption, however, allows the hero to free the heroine, or vice versa, bringing him back to rebirth. Literary narratives are all subject to a premise such as “admit for a moment that things may have gone that way.”. It is as if the writer had entered into a pact with the reader: the suspension of disbelief in what will be narrated. Unlike literary narratives, legal stories aspire to objectivity, concreteness, and respect for the ordinary and for the rules with which it is explored. They seem to be preceded by a premise such as “that’s how things went.” Legal fiction is the central subject of study by the Legal Storytelling Movement. This movement, also known as the Law and Literature and Law and Humanities (Di Donato 2008, 2012; Taruffo 2009), has stimulated valuable scientific approaches to the interpretation of law, understood as a critical tool of literary and anthropological–cultural analysis. Legal narratives deal with violations from a regulatory perspective. Although they apply universal laws, they relate to particular cases, they are instruments for examining the specific case dealt with by the law. They start with a problem (crime, offence) and try to identify the background (proof) in order to find a solution (judgment). It is as if they were saying: the story of this person (for example, the victim) does not end here, but must continue until you understand how it went and then until

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the last sentence. But the last verdict (the end of the story) can only come after it is established how past events have gone. Searching for antecedents not yet known means building new stories that integrate the history of the problem (crime, offence). The result will be a new story that must be assessed as legally admissible. If a rule has been violated, the sentence has the task of restoring balance or canonicality so that there are no appeals or subsequent quarrels. Then the story will end, but only after the past has been brought to light. In legal narratives, therefore, the study of the past has a prominent importance that imposes itself on the present. Autobiographical narratives are halfway between legal and literary narratives, halfway between the meticulous concern for the recording of the past of legal stories and the fascination of the possibility of literary stories. Autobiographies are oriented toward the past and the criterion by which they are evaluated by the subject is in some ways defined in a private way (my personal integrity, respect for me). They are sensitive to what is culturally placeable in time and space, and, like legal narratives, autobiographical narratives also deal with particular cases, although these cases can become more general considerations and become a model of interpretation of life, for example, as when an episode becomes a general principle of interpretation of an individual’s life. They therefore range from the particular to the general. Compared with legal narratives, however, there are two important differences. First, they are less guaranteed by those precautions that regulate the laws of evidence that exist in legal narratives. They therefore tend to be self-justifying. Second, they do not necessarily become a matter of public memory. However, if they are to be told, they must seem real, true, and credible, both to those who tell them and to those who listen to them and therefore seek a balance between public and private credibility, “being true” for the narrator and seeming true for the listener. For this reason, autobiographical narratives cannot be totally independent from the ideal types of autobiography present in culture. If legal narratives see the pre-eminence of the past and of what is established, and literary narratives the pre-eminence of the unexpected and of the possible, autobiographical narratives are at a point in-­ between, because they must be able to use both the possible and the consolidated. Autobiographical reconstruction needs to look for antecedents to justify the present. As we have already observed, the justification of the present is precisely the starting point of the autobiography and its certain nonlinear way of telling the facts by presenting a story whose conclusion we know in advance, of the information on which we already have a theory. On the other hand, it is also true that, while writing the autobiography, the person does not know exactly how it will end or, if he knows or thinks he knows, it is not certain that by writing it he will not change his mind. There is an interconnection among literary, legal, and autobiographical narratives. In fact, legal narratives are always a little literary, to the extent that they have to be convincing and plausible; on the other hand, literary narratives draw inspiration from legal genres, not only as content but also as procedures for the search for antecedents and the study of the past.

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In fact, these three different genres are ideal types and in reality they often crossbreed. For example, there is the genre “detective novel,” which can be characterized by the description of the environment, the attention to the spoken language, the psychological analysis of the characters, the relevance of other aspects, such as the sentimental life of the protagonist, the more general historical–political aspects, sometimes even philosophical. The literary genre and the legal genre can be intertwined in many ways: the literary genre provides the exploration of the possible, the imagination, the search for the unexpected, an immense array of states of mind, human strategies to solve their problems, with a sometimes capillary investigation that enters the folds of the characters’ skin: we know that all this did not happen but could happen, and this greatly increases our horizon of hypothesis, our notion of plausibility, and therefore our way of considering credible a certain account of how in reality the facts unfolded. The legal genre provides the problem-investigation mechanism, the knowledge of the laws, the scientific and technical procedures, the bureaucratic and daily aspects of the processes, the search for evidence, the demonstration and display, the distinction between the plausible and the proven, the different narratives that confront each other in defense or in accusation of the accused. The new legal literary genre shows us and makes us better understand how much literature draws nourishment from life and its rules that men have codified and from the ways in which they can be violated and, on the other hand, how much the courtrooms and the investigative process of a judge can draw inspiration from the world of literary fiction, and can in turn provide subject matter, as we see in the novels written by judges, lawyers, and prosecutors. This proximity between literature and the courtroom, which today is a new genre, has existed since ancient Greece when the people, such as Vernant and Vidal-Naquet (1972), wrote, wanted to go to the theater and finding it closed, went to the courts to attend the trial, and the arguments of lawyers whose declamations, on closer inspection, resemble incredibly those of the consummate actors of the theater. All three of these forms of narration described so far try to give an answer to the question: why is there an exception to this rule if we know that the world works in this way? However, what differentiates the three genres is the strategy with which the origin of the problem is identified, on which part of the story the cause is placed: in literary narratives after a norm, in legal ones before and in autobiographical ones without a fixed rule. To these three great narrative genres it is possible to add a fourth, the scientific one. For scientific narrative I refer to the way in which various scientists tell how they arrived at the results that they present in a publication. From this point of view, a scientific article, in so far as it describes a historical journey of things done and thought of by the author, in a work where author and protagonist (the one who carries out the research) coincide, is to all intents and purposes an autobiographical report. It is useful to consider this genre, because, like the genre of legal narratives, it presupposes a reality of the facts that are precisely those that are investigated. Reading these works (scientific papers published in important and less important journals), they seem to be moved by the effort to declare that the rather disordered and not always programmed way of carrying out the investigation, of which there is

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no mention, was in fact a linear and correct method formerly. Rather poor in terms of emotional language, they tell what the narrator has done after discovering a problem or a “vulnus” in the tradition of research on a certain subject, or an anomalous phenomenon not yet explained. After consulting, through the databases, his/her colleagues, who have dealt with the same problem or with similar problems, the author tells how he/she came to formulate a hypothesis about the reasons for this problem (its nature, the causes of it, the effects it causes, the other phenomena to which it is connected). He/she also explains why he/she considered the method and the instrument he/she chose as the most appropriate to finally arrive at the verification of this hypothesis. He/she then goes on to describe an experimental path or, in any case, an empirical observation, until arriving, in the discussion, at a reflection aimed at demonstrating whether that hypothesis has been verified or not. In the conclusions, the narrator shows satisfaction or dissatisfaction with the results achieved and foreshadows further and possible actions to be taken to get to the bottom of the new questions. Usually, it is a good idea to end with an act of modesty that admits the limits of research, which are inevitable as it is a human enterprise, but which do not, as it is said, invalidate the validity of the results, but only spur on to continue towards further verification. Of course, in telling all this, the narrator must be careful that in the end “the accounts come back,” because he knows that if there are no statistically significant results, if the hypothesis is not confirmed, hardly any journals would accept the work. The scientific and editorial world is oriented so much toward looking for articles that confirm hypotheses that this indirectly produces false authorship. This has created a dangerous publishing tradition according to which, in the face of results with significant differences (positive cases), we do not know how many works exist that have led to null or even negative results, because these are not published because of the publication bias (Bakker et al. 2012). Of course, every good researcher knows that, in statistical terms, it is not a question of verifying a hypothesis, but of falsifying a null hypothesis that allows them to take into consideration, but not to verify, the favorable hypothesis. In strictly Popperian terms, the story of a research process is the story, as Brecht (1955) would say through Galileo, of the efforts of a scientist to prove himself wrong and to think that he is perhaps right only after not being able to prove himself wrong (but the Popper-like reconstruction of Bertolt Brecht is not very common, or, at least, it is not easily encountered in conferences or scientific publications). It is curious that these narratives of the research process are always so coherent, so smooth, tending to confirm the existence of a good story, plausible, likely, compatible with what is “already known,” but at the same time bringing novelty and originality that makes the work worth reading, because it makes a significant contribution to research in that area. It is curious, however, how these narratives are so different from those that tell how discoveries are actually made, through errors, random encounters, misunderstandings, and sudden illuminations (Roberts 1989). How coherent is the story of a research project, despite the fact that in the end the researcher tries to highlight, with little conviction in truth, the limits of his work and, perhaps with a little more emphasis, the path still to be trodden! How coherent

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is this reconstruction! As in an autobiography in which everything returns: Giambattista Vico, who brings his life back to the fact of having fallen from a ladder, Abelard, who makes it dependent on having had a military father, etc. As if to say: it could only end like this. The scientific narrative therefore starts from the discovery of a problem and tells the story of the path taken to solve it, a little like the legal narratives that, in the end, through convincing evidence, lead to the discovery of the culprit. It is a tiring and often frustrating path, because, as any scientist well knows, it happens to hit your head against the rocky reality that you would like to be able to dominate, and that you “insist” to be different than how it is imagined. The scientific narratives, those that are extrapolated from the research published in journals with a high impact factor, are the maximum example of those oscillations that the narratives have in the direction of reality. But, even if they are dealing with experimental data and looking for correspondence between theory and reality, they end up being reconstructions that try to reconcile correspondence and coherence, in a sort of harmonic proportion that, at the same time, claims to be faithful to the data, to have respected all methodological and ethical rules and to have done all this in such a coherent way! The different forms of narration that I have described can be considered ways of dealing with the little big problems of life, really encountered or only possible through a device that allows you to relate norm and deviation. The purpose of the narration is to demonstrate that if an event or a chain of events, compared with a norm, can be considered a deviation, then reconstructing the events according to a certain order, tracing appropriate antecedents, hypothesizing specific emotions and motivations within the characters, that deviation no longer remains as such, but is only a variant of the norm as a further “example” of a love ended badly, of unexpected healing, of a personal metamorphosis. Or through the narrative you can discover a new fact. A possible and new event that, however, must be made plausible through a scenario created by the narrator. In any case, narratives can confirm our idea of the world or build a new one through the way in which we relate to each other norm, norm of deviations, deviation, and anomalous event. When the person narrates those unusual events and brings the deviation back into the norm, he/she does more than tame reality, because he builds a world that is increasingly complex, because it is increasingly compatible with the idea of violation.

Conclusion After having observed in the previous chapter how important the binomial “constancy–variability” was in cognitive development and in particular in play, in this chapter we have found ourselves facing it once again by exploring the world of art, where the divine proportion, the concinnitas on the one hand, and the disproportion and exaggeration on the other, have re-proposed the relationship between norm and deviation. We have seen how these concepts are fundamental to the measures of

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statistical science and how Ramachandran and Hirstein have used them in the formulation of the principle of peak displacement. The analysis carried out in this chapter has thus made it possible to highlight four key concepts on which the narrative understanding is based: norm, standard deviation from the norm, normal deviation, and anomaly. These concepts can be approximated to what was previously written about the concept of habituation, interest in variability, pleasure in repeating interesting shows, and bitonic ritualization. From a cognitive point of view, they are connected both to the search for variability and to the search for the norm. Schank argued that the cognitive system is usually placed in a condition where events are expected to happen normally, but is at the same time ready to grasp what is unexpected. An anomalous phenomenon does not always deserve further analysis, but it is nevertheless the subject of a first level of attention. We have seen in the previous chapter that some authors (Goldberg and Costa 1981; Martin et al. 1997) have identified in the left and right hemispheres processes specifically intended to work with what is already known or what is still unknown. This discovery further supports the conviction of a dynamic relationship between constancy and variability: what at first appears variable and unpredictable can become a regulated and predictable phenomenon at a later stage, after it has been elaborated. This proceeding toward the unexpected and this continuous work to reduce it to canonical is precisely what the processes of narrative understanding do. Narrative comprehension, precisely because of the resources brought by memory and play, by respect for reality and its invention, is driven to face the unexpected in order to domesticate it and make it a cognitive heritage thanks to that previous knowledge made up of rules and the “normal” exceptions to them. Through storytelling, narrative understanding has the right equipment to deal with the unexpected in a world laboriously built up through rules. It is interested in looking for the reasons behind the daily puzzles and in finding appropriate antecedents, external conditions, triggering events, and mental states. Using narrative genres, narrative understanding also has the cultural resources necessary to understand oneself and others. Literary, legal, autobiographical, and scientific genres address and elaborate constancy and variability. Through autobiographical narratives, narrative understanding is not only interested in understanding how and why events actually went away. It goes beyond that to wonder how they could have gone. The playful component inserts into the narration the way of possibility. The development of symbolic playful thinking, perennially going toward what is different, indicates to us that without the world of possibility we could not give meaning to reality. This is why a story, as Bruner wrote effectively (2003), must be able to give an answer to the eternal dialectic between what is consolidated (i.e., assumed for certain) and what is possible, a possible one that could be able to subvert the order of the consolidated. It is precisely because of this dialectic that story subsumes in itself the dichotomy of constancy and variability. Self-­ understanding is not separated from the person’s fears, desires, and aspirations. In fact, the autobiographical genre used by narrative comprehension is halfway between the meticulous concern for recording and storytelling of the past (so typical of legal stories) and the fascination of possibility (on which literary stories are

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based). As I have already said, if legal narratives see the pre-eminence of the past and of what is established, and literary narratives the pre-eminence of the unexpected and the possible, autobiographical narratives are at a point in the middle, because they must be able to use both the possible and the consolidated. You don’t just tell what you remember and you don’t just remember what you tell, because telling and remembering are inextricably linked to how things could go and therefore to a judgment and a reflection on the past. If that is the case, we can conclude that there is a first type of narrative understanding that fundamentally concerns the Self (even if it cannot exclude the other) because it is directed toward the knowledge of one’s own past. This kind of understanding occurs when a narrator tells a narratee. But no one is ever just a storyteller. We are the recipients of other people’s stories. When we tell, we often do so in response to another story and, in producing our own, we start further versions, further answers in a process that has a duration that cannot be determined a priori. This double role that the person plays, that of being a narrator and a narratee, means that the first type of narrative understanding directed toward himself is thus linked to a second type of understanding. In the second part of this volume, I consider a second type of narrative understanding, one that is predominantly directed toward the other. As we will see, this kind of understanding cannot do without the first. However, it is different because the narrator has now become a narratee who wants or needs to understand what the other is telling. We will see how narrative understanding can be considered an interpretative act that takes place in relation to a text and how the principle of reducing discrepancy leads us toward the theme of reasoning and thought necessary to formulate hypotheses and to try to verify them.

References Bakker, M., Van Dijk, A., & Wicherts, J. M. (2012). The rules of the game called psychological science. Perspective in Psychological Science, 7(6), 743–754. Booker, C. (2004). The seven basic plots: why we tell stories. London: Continuum. Brecht, B. (1955). Leben des Galilei. Berlin: Suhrkamp. English edition: Brecht, B. (1967). The life of Galileo (Translation: D.I. Vesey). London: Methuen. Bruner, J. (2003). Making stories: law, literature, life. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Corbusier, L. (1951). Le Modulor. Assai sur une mesure harmonique à l’échelle humaine applicable universellement à l’architecture et à la mécanique. Editions de l'Architeture d'aujoudh'hui, 1951 Desideri, F., & Cantelli, C. (2015). Storia dell’estetica occidentale. Rome: Carocci. Di Donato, F. (2008). La costruzione giudiziaria del fatto. Milan: Franco Angeli. Di Donato, F. (2012). La realtà delle storie: traccia di una cultura. Naples: Guida. Eco, U. (2004). La storia della bellezza. Milan: Bompiani. English edition: Eco, U. (2010). History of beauty (Translation: A. McEwen). Random House Incorporated. Eco, U. (2007). La storia della bruttezza. Milan: Bompiani. English edition: Eco, U. (2011). On ugliness (Translation: A. McEwen), London: MacLehose. Goldberg, E., & Costa, L. D. (1981). Hemisphere differences in the acquisition and use of descriptive systems. Brain Language, 14(1), 144–173.

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Gombrich, E. H. (1987). Reflection of the history of art. edited by R. Woodfield Berkeley and Los Angeles University of California Press. Gombrich, E. H., & Kris, E. (1938). The principles of caricature. The British Journal of Medical Psychology, 17, 319–342. Kandel, E. (2012). The age of insight: the quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain, from Vienna 1900 to the present. New York: Random House. Lakoff, G. (1987). Concepts and conceptual development: ecological and intellectual factors in categorization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Martin, A., Wiggs, C. L., & Weisberg, J. (1997). Modulation of human medial temporal lobe activity by form, meaning or experience. Hippocampus, 7, 587–593. Ramachandran, V. S., & Hirstein, W. (1999). The science of art, a neurological theory of aesthetic experience. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 6(6–7), 15–51. Roberts, R. M. (1989). Serendipity:Accidental Discoveries in Science. Hoboken (NJ), Wiley & Sons Schank, R. C. (1990). Tell me a story. Evanston: Northwestern University Press. Schank, R., & Childers, P. (1988). The creative attitude. New York: Macmillan. Snow, C. P. (1959). The two cultures and a second look. London: Cambridge University Press. Taruffo, M. (2009). La semplice verità. Il giudice e la costruzione dei fatti. Rome-Bari: Laterza. Vernant, J.-P., & Vidal-Naquet, P. (1972). Mithe et tragédie en Grecie ancienne. Paris: Maspero.

Part II

The Narrative Understanding of the Other

Chapter 8

Count and Recount

Reading, Writing, and Counting

Fig. 8.1  Abacus and spelling book: two basic tools for counting and recounting

I would like to pick up on the essential points dealt with in the first part of this volume. I started by questioning the discontinuity between the internal world and the external reality: that “mysterious leap between memory and narration.” Both physical and social constraints heavily condition the production of language, especially in its narrative version. But it is precisely these bonds that force man to develop new methods to make fully evolved, communicable and understandable that disordered interiority of his memories. Through narrative, collective processes and products (such as dialogue, discourse, and stories) are created and then internalized. Memory and inner language, after being transformed into narrative, return to being memory and inner language, but in a new version, this time enriched by the experience of socializing narrative. Autobiographical narrative is not just a storytelling of memories of past events in one’s life. The narrative also comes from another source of inspiration: the play. Play provides autobiographical narrative with the dimension of possibility and

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invention and, thanks to play, the understanding of one’s own life also becomes the understanding of how it could be and will possibly be. Self-understanding is not just an understanding of what you have done. It is something much more complex, including judgment and reasoning. Through the play you learn to extract constancy from variability and variability from constancy, precisely because in the game you fully become, on a fantastical plane, a creator. The processes described so far concern above all a type of understanding that helps the narrator to become aware and to reflect upon himself discovering realities of which he was not aware. However, the narrator was, before narrating (or will be soon after), a narratee. This change of role is indispensable for the establishment of the narrative dialogue. What the narrator tells cannot be separated from what he/she has just heard and what he/she will hear, once his/her interlocutor, the narrator, becomes the narratee. When the narrator becomes a narratee, he/she has to develop a second type of narrative understanding. This understanding concerns the text that the narrator gives him/her along with his/her intentions and goals. How does the narratee then understand something that is not his or hers and that comes from “outside”? In order to be able to answer these questions, it is necessary to enter a new world, between textual interpretation and understanding of the other, and to further deepen the cognitive processes that make narrative comprehension possible. In this second part of the book we show how narrative understanding can make use of a multiplicity of thoughts, and we see how this multiplicity can work in a unified way. First of all I would like to start by considering two types of cognitive activities, counting and recounting. For a long period of human history the spelling book and abacus have been the main tools for teaching written language and arithmetic (see Fig. 8.1). Both consist of a set of signs or objects that are completely arbitrary, but which, through appropriate guidance, allow the conquest of two formidable skills on which civilized living is based. People who learn have to discover the specific function of letters through sounds and words, and, in the case of arithmetic, they have to learn to consider that the balls of an abacus are biunivocal representatives of other things such as flowers, goats, or sacks of grain. To do all this takes time and more time for the illiterate child or adult to transform these early learnings into fluent reading, writing, and counting skills. In this chapter, we talk about counting and recounting, about spoken and written language, as we will need all of this to begin a systematic discourse on thought. The etymology of a word is different from its meaning of use: the first describes a past history, the second is necessarily limited to the present. But, as in the definition of what an adult is, one cannot ignore the child it has been, because he/she preserves the traces of this, so for a word this is useful, in order to fully understand its meaning, to study how it has come to be formed over the years or centuries. I consider first some almost synonyms of the words used to describe the act of telling. The word “narration”, with its root “gna” (as in Latin: gnarus = expert or gnoscere = know, see English “Ignore”), has the original meaning of using knowledge to communicate it. The narrator is someone who is aware, but also who makes known. The accent is placed both on the knowledge deposited in the narrator because he/she

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knows, and at least partly tells what he/she knows, and on the very act of narrating that makes the recipient aware of this knowledge. As it is linked to knowledge, narration appears to be very different from the fairytale meaning that is sometimes attributed to it. But this should not come as much of a surprise, because knowing something denotes a personal conviction or point of view that may not correspond to reality. As for the word “story,” it has an origin very closely linked to vision (therefore, a direct act without intermediaries with reality). Coming from the Greek στορία through the Latin historia, which has the meaning of knowledge reached through research, shares the same root of ὁράω (see). The perfect oîda (“I saw”) takes on the meaning of know, because, having seen, I now know. The origin of the words narration and history therefore leads us to the meaning of knowing–making reality known. It inspires us with images of messengers and ambassadors sent to inform the sovereign about important events, oral narrations of events that took place by visiting new and unknown places. More complex and intriguing is the origin of the word recount. There are many indications that approach recount to count.  At first glance, this proximity is counterintuitive. If we consider the variety of forms of a story, some of which are imaginative, surreal, opaque or ambiguous, this derivation seems totally inexplicable. If I say three dogs and two cats, I am not interested in knowing what breed they are; what interests me is only the number from which I can deduce that there are five animals and that there are more dogs than cats. What relationship does all this have with the story that, by its very nature, is led to tell us everything about those three dogs and two cats: who they are, what they have done and why, where, and when? Despite this, the links between the two words are numerous. The Italian word raccontare (recount) comes from contare. The same is for English word recount that is, counting a second time) and the similarity between these two words is proposed again for German, and French (erzählen and zählen, recompter and compter) As for Spanish, the resemblance is total: counting and recounting are expressed through the same word, contar. The Latin word computare has multiple meanings: “count” and “calculate” (calculum = little stone), but also “read” (compitare like “reading with difficulty”) and “telling.” Computare also comes etymologically from puto, i.e., “I believe,” “I estimate,” “I evaluate,” and also “I cut,” i.e., “I verify,” “I come to a conclusion after verifying the elements involved”. Not only. But if we consider the English word “to Tell” we find similiar results. The verb “to tell”, which has no Latin origin, comes from Ancient English “Tellan” which had the meaning of reckon, calculate, number, compute, consider, think, esteem, account. In a similar way it is connected also to Proto-Germanic *taljan (“to mention in order”) and ancient Saxon “tellian”. The meaning of telling and making known is later (12th century). It is therefore interesting to note that comparing two words one with a Latin origin (Recount) and one with a Saxon and Germanic origin we always find this connection between the act of calculating and counting and the act of making known and narrating. Let us consider now the Greek words logos and legein and the Latin term, lego. Logos comes

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from legein (root ∗leg-), which means collecting, gathering, putting together, but also counting, calculating, and enumerating. In Akkadian, we find the voices lequs, laqus (collect, understand), therefore consistent with Greek legein, with Latin lego (collect, listen, choose, name, read) and loquor (speaking, telling, naming). The Akkadian voices lequs an laqus constitute the linguistic basis of the Hebrew làqah (to receive, to perceive), which also preserves the concept of collecting and understanding (Fongaro 2007). Even in the Italian and English language, after all, comprendere (comprehension) means both “prendere insieme” (gather) and “understanding.” This indicates that comprensione (comprehension) is possible because a part of reality is selected and separated from the rest, like when you go into the woods to collect wood or mushrooms. When a portion of reality is selected and the individual elements chosen are taken one by one and then brought together (legein), it is possible to say something (legein) about them and to count them (legein). It is not difficult to recognize that the act of collecting (expressed by the words comprehension or comprensione) expresses a practical activity that allows us to collect and eventually evaluate things in quantitative terms; thus, a collection can be abundant, scarce, or sufficient for each member of a community. Once objects are considered similar because they share that characteristic that interests them, for example, their edibility, it becomes possible to enumerate them and find a collective name that unites them all. Other examples that prove the link that counting and recounting have with the body is the use of hands. Fingers are used to indicate, enumerate, and express quantities. But to indicate is also the starting point of an external reference to which to draw attention to ask for something or to talk about something. Moreover, the hands are used to evoke, to communicate, to comment metalinguistically on what is said. Both counting and recounting involved and were accompanied by a system of material registration that then produced the first forms of writing: making notches on bones, marking, drawing symbols with which to keep accounts, lists, catalogues through which to recount something. Calculation systems and writing systems have evolved together around abstraction: the number for the quantity of objects or events considered only in their quantitative consistency, the story, made of images or words, for the denomination of these events and objects. In both cases, calculation systems and writing systems have been provided with concatenation rules, whether these be those of numerical sorting or of syntax. Therefore, both numbers and sets of words are used to put in order and simplify reality (Piper 2012). All these elements of commonality between counting and recounting take us back to primitive but fundamental actions of civilization at the base of the creation of both verbal and written signs.

From Gesture Language to Verbal Language According to Corballis (2015) the development of language has been a very long process whose beginning can be traced back, during the Pleistocene, to gesticulating. It is not to be excluded that the origin of the language can also be sought in the

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new sound potential determined by the bipedal station reached, which would lower the position of the skull with respect to the spine, causing lowering of the larynx, the main organ of phonation. In humans, it is located much deeper in the throat than it is in other great apes. This lower position in the throat, resulting in an elongation of the oral cavity, allows a greater modulation of sounds, especially vocal sounds, and consequently the production of a greater number of different sounds. This would have allowed the evolution of the articulated language permitting Homo ergaster (a hominid now completely bipedal who lived between about 1.8 and 1 million years ago) to produce a wider range of vocalizations and to be more melodious because the vocal cords had become less rigid. In fact, with the acquisition of the bipedal gait, there was no longer the need to have a thick larynx and vocal cords that were necessary as a basis for the muscles of the upper limbs when these were used for four-legged gait. Despite these considerations, according to Corballis, today’s most accepted theories reconnect language with gestures and nonverbal communication. In this long journey from nonverbal to verbal, two periods can be distinguished.

 he First Period: The Liberation of Hands T with the Station Upright One of the reasons why the primitive forms of language were gestural rather than vocal is because the former were corticalized, i.e., voluntary, whereas the latter were not (Corballis 2002). The process of developing language from nonverbal to verbal is based primarily on a natural platform consisting of mirror neurons. They would have allowed the development of mimesis, i.e., the ability to mimic, and thus intentionally reproduce, actions and events of the outside world. The upright station freed the hands and trunk, allowing gesticulation and its use for communicative purposes. The movements of the hands can imitate the movements of objects in space and facial expressions can communicate something of the emotions related to the events that are being described in the gestures (Donald 1991). Tomasello (1999, 2014) highlighted how mimicking gestures (especially iconic gestures) are at the basis of pretending and therefore of the fictional and imaginative world, which allows us to represent things that are absent. Subsequently, the financial activities, by coordinating and conventionalizing each other, become sufficiently effective tools for communication and understanding. In this way, we approach an abstract system that allows us to refer to things that are not present or unspeakable or easily represented because, as Tomasello (2014) pointed out, when I make a gesture to inform you that I saw an antelope flee over the hill or to warn you that the cave we are about to enter is full of snakes, or to tell you how a hunting trip from which I have just returned went, I must represent entire scenarios in which some of the main characters are not even present and the actions are concluded after a long time or are only planned.

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But there is one more element to consider. Although in monkeys the mirror system responds only to transitive acts, that is to say, to those situations in which the animal tries to reach an object that is effectively present (mirror neurons “see” both the movement of the hand and the object toward which this movement is directed), in humans the mirror system also responds to intransitive acts, that is, to situations in which the object toward which the movement is directed is not present, as happens in mimesis (Fadiga et al. 1995). This is a key change in the path that leads to language. Mimesis is, in fact, intrinsically communicative: it is put in place to induce the observer to think about specific actions, events, or objects far from the here and now of the current situation. Corballis (2011) pointed out that the incorporation of intransitive acts into the mirror system may have laid the foundations for understanding acts that are symbolic rather than object-oriented. It may be thought that at the beginning of the Pleistocene, complex activities such as hunting or killing an animal were represented by our ancestors through pantomimes that were progressively conventionalized to clarify their meaning. For example, “the gestural recount” can be divided into separate actions (having a spear, hitting an animal with a spear) and then gradually reduced to a standard format. In this way, the gesture became much more marked, freeing itself from the pantomime. At this point, these signs have taken on the same function as words. Connecting rules can then be formed to create sequences, thus creating an implicit grammar. This grammar of gestures, which is structured according to the subject–verb–object system, makes it easier to transpose nonverbal communication into oral form.

Second Period: From Hand to Mouth The beginning of vocalized language was made possible by the corticalization of vocalization and respiration. By becoming volunteers, these two movements facilitated the birth of language as a transmission of signs. This period is in turn divided into two phases. The first phase concerned the incorporation of facial gestures into the mirror system. Given the connections between hand and mouth,1 the first communicative gestures involved both facial and manual gestures. Presumably, the first phase in the transition from gestures to speech was therefore to increase the involvement of the face in communication. The second phase included the incorporation of

1  In monkeys, manual and facial gestures are closely linked. Ferrari and collaborators (2003) have identified that motor neurons of the mouth of the F5 area of the monkey are activated when the animal observes another individual who performs with the mouth actions related to both ingestive functions (grasping, sucking, etc.) and in response to oral–facial communication gestures (protrusion of the lips, tongue, etc.). The area dedicated to the verbal production in human beings represents, therefore, the evolution of a system originally used for the fine control of the oro-facial actions of monkeys (Petrides et al. 2005).

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vocalizations into the mirror system and the perception of speech became a natural function of the mirror system. In this way, manual gestures were gradually replaced by articulatory gestures with a continuity between manual and vocal language. Through this path, which began about 2 million years ago, around 50,000–35,000 BC, with the Homo sapiens, language was definitely established as an autonomous mode. Speech has more practical advantages than gestures (Corballis 2011). First of all, the sounds reach areas that are inaccessible to the eye. With the voice it is, in fact, possible to address even people who do not see us, whereas the languages of gesture require visual contact. This has the important advantage of making communication possible in the dark. The word, with respect to the gesture, also allows us to easily attract the attention of others. Finally, vocal language allows hands to be freed by making them available for other activities, such as the construction and use of artifacts: people can talk, build, and use tools at the same time, while gesticulating, and, at the same time, producing tools is undoubtedly more difficult. The use of voice language may thus have generated rapid technological development: increasingly complex technologies could be described, explained, and transmitted from one generation to the next. Language, moreover, allows not us only to exchange information but also to coordinate, share experiences, and induce the other to take action, and this has had great adaptive value since the beginning because it has facilitated interpersonal coordination and teamwork. Given this descent of verbal language from gestural language (in some ways similar to child development), it is easier to understand the links between counting and recounting. Verbal language, and the very acts of counting and recounting, are clearly affected by the gestures and the spatiality from which they derive (Tomasello 2014). As Donald wrote (1991), human evolution has passed from episodic memory, capable of reproducing actions limited in time, to medium-term or mimetic memory, capable not only of reproducing the past but of predicting the future, and finally to a narrative memory, capable, through linguistic symbols, of giving order to experiences through the construction of myths.

From Pictographic Representations to Writing The story of counting and recounting leads us to that fascinating territory of human history represented by the origin and function of written signs. According to Leroi Gourhan (1965), the first germs of writing were thrown down around 3500 BC in the Mesopotamian area and later by the Phoenicians, with the introduction of the alphabet in 1500 BC. Processes such as agricultural sedentarization, urban regrouping, and metallurgy contributed to this important cultural step forward. The development in the production of tools in particular is inseparable from the development of writing, as this is achieved precisely through tools that

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Fig. 8.2  Representation of a bulle enveloppe (bubble) with calculi

have in turn contributed to the changing shape of the signs. Just think of the use of clay, which allowed for wedge-shaped writing, but not more complicated graphic signs, which could not be clearly executed on this material. According to Schmandt-Besserat (1996), writing comes from a calculation activity. In a first phase, datable to around the ninth millennium BC, in Anatolia, Iran, and Egypt, people began to use stones or calculi placed in containers, or bulles enveloppes  (bubble), with the function of indicating a number of specific things (Malafouris 2013; Rosa and Valsiner 2018) (Fig. 8.2). Some of these calculi could be slightly different in shape from each other, so as to indicate a different kind of thing. For example, three pointed pebbles could indicate three cockerels whereas three round pebbles could indicate three hares. In a second phase of these calculi, signs or drawings were made in order to differentiate between them in terms of reference and number. The meaning represented was no longer indicated by the shape of the calculus but by conventional marks on it. Finally, in a third phase, the calculi disappeared and only the marks above the bubbles remained. These changes, as Olson also points out (Olson and Torrance 1991; Olson 1994), had the function of differentiating words from things, but, at the same time, making words be considered signs, thus endowed with a more arbitrary and abstract notation. The development of this primitive form of mnemonics constituted by the written language, when it abandons the correspondence calculus to use the graphic sign of the corresponding number, rises to a higher level as abstractness. But, equally important for our argument, is that this coupling between numbers and things creates the first rudimentary forms of counting–recount. At the site of Tell Brak, discovered in 1986 on paleo-Akkadian soil, some bubbles were found with the following inscription: 21 sheep that have already procreated; 6 female lambs; 8 male rams; 4 lambs; 6 deer that have procreated; 1 goat; 3 goats. Total 49 rams and goats belonging to Puḫišenni, the son of Musapu and which were entrusted to Ziqarru, the son of Šalliya the shepherd. Sealed ­document of Ziqarru the shepherd of Puḫišenni. Among them 8 sheep marked in red. (Glassner 2000, 155)

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This inscription, in addition to representing quantities, takes the form of a list. In fact, the thematic lists have represented important forms of cultured writing that testify to the social use of writing and the importance that, for some populations, such as the Sumerians, the order of the world had. The first was that they represented an exercise in writing, a sort of verification of the effectiveness of the sign in denoting reality. Some of these signs will disappear, whereas others will be retained. The second was to classify reality. In the thematic lists of pots, for example, there are terms used to indicate different types of container and their contents classified as a product derived from the plant or animal, such as food, cheese, cereals, etc. In the Babylonian city of Uruk, Syria, 650 lexicographic texts were found consisting of lists of words and concepts linked by semantic constraints designating various types of animals such as cows, birds, fish, pigs, types of trees, wooden tools, textiles, etc. (Glassner 2000). For a long time, written language was still of a circumscribed and very poor documentary quality: accounts, acknowledgements of debts toward gods or men, series of dynasties, oracles, and lists of sanctions. If we take into account that written language was also a kind of mnemonics, we can understand that it was used when it was necessary to learn by heart something that was more difficult to remember. For knowledge and routine practices, which constituted the bulk of knowledge, oral tradition, or the same gestural and motor memory, was sufficient. Writing, on the other hand, was necessary in order to note the exceptionality or to memorize news related to the economy of circulation, financial or religious acts, consecrations, genealogies, the calendar, and distances. Thus, it is understandable why the written number precedes the written word; in fact, the gestures, practices, and techniques can be transmitted for both imitative learning and oral transmission. But once we have taken a further step toward understanding the links between counting and recounting and have noticed the link with the rise of writing, we need to ask ourselves what relationships have existed between written and spoken language? According to Leroi Gourhan (1965) the passage from pictography to alphabetical writing marks a fundamental change from a diffuse radial thought to a linear one. In drawing, thought is expressed in a topological sense. The figure must be looked at in its entirety, examined in its parts to understand its relationships and understand the meaning of the stories told. The transition to alphabetical writing has led to a contraction of thought: the images that expresses it also contract and are transformed into a rigorous linearization of graphic symbols. The graphic simplification leads to an alignment of the pictorial signs that express actions and not only objects and therefore to a decontextualization: the drawings, from being symbols, become real signs, tools at the service of memory. According to Leroi Gourhan, it is possible to imagine an accounting system in which numbers and simplified drawings of animals and grain measurements, for example, are aligned. Progressively, drawings are reduced to lines that express actions and no longer objects. Written language is subordinate to oral language, symbols are reduced and this allows much more than just accounting to be represented. The impoverishment of the means of expression is to the advantage of

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simplicity. In short, the creation of a linear writing is due to the guidance of oral language that has subjected the pictogram to a transformation in a linear and simplified sense and such as to possess all the advantages of orality. In this way, the verbal–graphic dualism disappears and man has a unique linguistic apparatus, an instrument of expression and conservation of thought, which in turn is increasingly channeled into reasoning. This reconstruction by Leroi Gourhan, which gives oral language a leading role in writing, is only one side of the coin. According to Olson (1994), the introduction of writing was a conceptual model that in turn informed oral language of itself. The history of writing is the result of efforts to use a tool that in some ways is so unsuitable for language. In fact, written language does not in itself present the possibility of expressing the illocutionary dimension of oral language, that which indicates how the text should be understood. When quoting or transmitting speeches made by others, oral language can represent their intonation, whereas this is not possible with writing. The author is absent from the written text and cannot be consulted. However, the weaknesses of writing were precisely their strengths. The author loses his voice and gives it to the reader who takes it to speak (Olson 1994; Harris 1989; Gellner 1988). Writing has introduced a new awareness of the linguistic structure. In this way, in order to tell what another said and how he said it, it was necessary to invent suitable linguistic forms and structures to be fixed in the text. The history of writing can be defined as the struggle to repair what we lost when we submitted oral language to written language, transforming the non-lexical properties of oral language (intonation) into lexical properties. Having to write down those aspects of oral language that transmitted emotions, moods, extra-linguistic aspects, written language had to develop to acquire appropriate tools and this contributed to making language in itself an object of reflection. This greater reflectivity of written language has also affected the awareness with which oral language has been used. In short, if orality guides graphism toward writing through linearization, writing guides orality by acting as a model and promoting awareness. Orality leads graphism toward a new system of signifiers (graphic signs), but writing allows orality to be enriched in terms of meanings. Through writing one acquires a powerful means of recording events and language, an extraordinary tool for reflection, a creative use to make up for the shortcomings of life lived. The study of the birth of writing confirms what we have observed in previous chapters, where it is shown that writing is an important technique for making explicit thought and ordering verbal language.

Conclusion: The List as a Unifying Genre If we now try to compare the paths described so far, the etymological, ethnological, and archeological ones, we can grasp a certain congruence in the results relating to the relationship between counting and recounting.

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Writing originates from the need to enumerate and this need, applied to the qualitative representation of things and ideas of things, leads to the creation of lists that combine the activities of calculation and categorization. After conceptually selecting a collection of objects, such as goats, it was possible to represent them more precisely by means of calculi of different shapes and quantities. It is possible carve on top of the bubbles  different types of signs representing the goat and the number of goats. Over time, some signs began to mean concepts and then to become words, others to indicate numbers and quantities. In addition, many sign things and number marks have been sorted according to a succession and semantic constraints of some kind. In this sense, the use of lists has served to agree on how to name the world through a defined system of signs. Hence, the triple importance of the list: as a basis for the creation of the written language, as a basis for the ordering of the world, and a basis for its quantification. A list allows a certain amount of things or events to be collected together, to be classified, and to be counted. The lists are quality and quantity, name and number, category and frequency, and they express speech and counting, a first form of storytelling and enumeration. They are a selection and a collection (lego) of things, each of which retains both the property of “being part of” and the property of being itself. They express the abstractness of the class and the concreteness of the individual case. Lists have lived and coexisted with the history of literature, art, and science, taking at least two forms. The first is the list as we have been accustomed to considering it up till now since the one found in the excavations of the site of Tell Brak or even in everyday life when we have to go to the supermarket and we have to remember what to buy. The second is the list as an example of what you want to indicate. In this second case, the list, as Eco (2009) writes, suggests infinity, because in fact it does not end. For example, Homer’s catalogue of ships. In order to give a sense of the immensity of the Greek army, he provides a list, but premises that he will not be able to enumerate all of them “even if I had ten languages and ten mouths.” In the second book of the Iliad, Homer lists the contingents of the Greek armada that arrived in Troy by ship. The catalogue indicates the names of the masters of each army, their place of provenance, their names, and their descent; it also indicates the number of vessels with which each army arrived in Troy, with further indications as to their importance. The list includes 29 armies led by 46 skippers, for a total of 1186 vessels. If we consider an approximate number of 120 men per ship, the result is a total of 142,320 men called by various ethnic names who lived in 164 different places (toponyms). See for example the following verses: Fifty ships came freighted with these contingents, one hundred and twenty young Boeotians manning each. Then men who lived in Aspledon, Orchomenos of the Minyans fighters led by Ascalaphus and Ialmenus, sons of Ares whom Astyoche bore in Actor son of Azeus’ halls when the shy young girl, climbing into the upper rooms made love with the god of war in secret, shared his strength.

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8  Count and Recount In her two sons’ command sailed thirty long curved ships. Then Schedius and Epistrophus led the men of Phocistwo sons of Iphitus, that great heart. Naubolus’ sonthe men who held Cyparissus and Python’s high crags. the hallowed earth of Crisa, Daulis and Panopeus, men who dwelled round Anemoria, round Hyampolls. men who lived along the Cephisus’ glinting waters, men who held Lilaea dose to the river’s wellsprings. Laden with all their ranks came forty long black ships and Phocian captains ranged them column by column, manning stations along the Boeotians’ left flank (Homer, Iliad, II, 599–614)

In this list or catalogue, Homer, in describing the categories of objects, their number, the main attributes such as place, role, family relationships, names of persons, etc., begins to introduce the basic elements of a narrative, what in the structure of a story is called “orientation.” Thus, this path we have taken to trace the origin of the word and the story and its links to counting has led us to the birth of writing and the creation of the first lists, teaching us that the story contains both a classifying aspect (counting) and an aspect that links classifications according to a temporal, causal or intentional order. Recounting (telling, narrating) seems like what you can do after counting. Only after we have agreed on how to name the world can we put it in order, build lists, and tell something about it. At the same time, this link between counting and recounting indicates the extent to which paradigmatic and classifying thinking is implicit in the narrative: how many things must be stipulated before they can be told and in general a recount is possible. The fact that in many cases this stipulation is not made because it is implicit or transmitted orally or through practices only indicates the preponderant role that shared culture plays in the construction of narrative and in narrative listening. In conclusion, the narrative is contained in a form that is sometimes only implicit, sometimes even explicit, a type of numerical logic, and this is what we see in the next chapter.

References Corballis, M.  C. (2002). From hand to mouth: the origins of language. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Corballis, M. C. (2011). The recursive mind: the origins of human language, thought and civilization. Princeton: Princeton University Press. Corballis, M.  C. (2015). The wandering mind: what the brain does when you’re not looking. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the modern mind: three stages in the evolution of human culture. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Eco, U. (2009). La vertigine della lista. Milan: Bompiani. Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., Pavesi, G., & Rizzolatti, G. (1995). Motor facilitation during action observation: a magnetic stimulation study. Journal of Neurophysiology, 73(6):2608–2611

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Ferrari, P. F., Gallese, V., Rizzolatti, G., & Fogassi, L. (2003). Mirror neurons responding to the observation of ingestive and communicative mouth actions in the monkey ventral premotor cortex. European Journal of Neuroscience, 178, 1703–1714. Fongaro, M. (2007). Logos: proposte etimologiche per il lessico filosofico. Dialegesthai. Rivista telematica di filosofia, 9, 30 December. Gellner, E. (1988). Plough, sword and book: the structure of human history. London: Collins Harvill. Glassner, J. J. (2000). Écrire à sumer: L’invention du cunéiforme. Paris: Seuil. Harris, W. V. (1989). Ancient literacy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Homer. (1991). The Iliad. (English translation: Robert Fagles). Penguin Books: New York. Leroi Gourhan, A. (1964–1965). Le geste et la parole (Vol. 2). Paris: Albin Michel. Malafouris, L. (2013). How things shape the mind: a theory of material engagement. Cambridge, MA: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press. Olson, D. R. (1994). The world on paper: the conceptual and cognitive implications of reading and writing. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University Press. Olson, D. R., & Torrance, N. (1991). Literacy and orality. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Petrides, M., Cadoret, G., & Mackey, S. (2005). Orofacial somatomotor responses in the macaque monkey homologue of Broca’s area. Nature, 435, 1325–1328. Piper, A. (2012). Book was there. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Rosa, S., & Valsiner, J. (2018). The Cambridge handbook of sociocultural psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Schmandt-Besserat, D. S. (1996). How writing came about. Austin: The University of Texas Press. Tomasello, M. (1999). The cultural origins of human cognition. Harvard: Harvard University Press. Tomasello, M. (2014). A natural history of human thinking. Harvard: Harvard University Press.

Chapter 9

Man of Multiform Ingenuity

“Sing in me, Muse! And through me tell the story of that man skilled in all ways of contending, the wanderer, harried for years on end after he’d plundered the stronghold of the proud heights of Troy” (Homer, Odyssey, I, 1–3)

Myth and Thought

Fig. 9.1  Ulysses cannot help but look for and understand all that is new and strange

The poem of the Odyssey recounts the singing of Ulysses, the man who deceived the Trojans and inside his horse led the Greeks to the conquest of the city and, on return to Ithaca, embarked on a journey that was an unfulfilled and unquenchable search, as is the curiosity of a child at an age when he does not stop asking why. A journey

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that began by being a means and ended up turning into a goal, sung by Dante as a parable of knowledge, and by Constantine Cavafy (1993) as a representation of a path where to hope that the road is long, that the summer mornings are many, to learn a lot of things, but always having Ithaca in mind, because “Ithaca gave you the marvelous journey. Without her you wouldn’t have set out. She has nothing left to give you now”. Thus, the skilled man, the man of multiform ingenuity that allowed the Greeks to enter the Ilios walls, saved his companions from the fury of the Cyclops, and that came back home under the false guise of a beggar, has been handed down as the configuration of human intelligence being capable of adapting to things and going beyond them, transmuting itself according to cases and needs. Although the Iliad begins with an invocation to the muse to suggest to the poet the right words to convey the wrath and strength of Achilles, the Odyssey is an invocation to Ulysses’s intelligence to his multiform ingenuity (Fig. 9.1). The Trojan War and the return of Ulysses are mythical tales, though reordered and woven by Homer. The myth, as Vernant wrote (1999), is presented in the form of a tale that came from the mists of time and that existed before any narrator began to tell it. The mythical tale is different from poetry because here the text remains identical through any performance, it is different from the historical tale that presumes to tell the facts that really happened, and different again from the literary tale that is the work of a single person and is pure fiction. The mythical tale is nourished and modified through the very act of narration, starting from tradition and memory; it is never fixed in a definitive form and being transmitted orally, it involves variations and multiple versions; it is open to innovation and to the freedom of choice of the narrator and it widens to interpret a treasure of thoughts, linguistic forms, cosmological fantasies, moral precepts such as those that constitute the common heritage of the Greeks in the pre-classical age. Myth plays a fundamental role in the life of a people in its religious, artistic, and philosophical productions. Plato tells us that Socrates, on the day he died, spent his last hours talking to his closest disciples, Simmia, Cebete, Critone, Apollodorus, and Fedone, about the death of the body and the immortality of the soul. Socrates uses various arguments to convince them that the soul survives the body after death. But, after these long demonstrations, punctuated, as was his custom, by questions designed to find out about their doubts and to verify their agreement, Socrates realizes that something still hinders their understanding and carries out what a psychoanalyst would call an interpretation: Still I suspect that you and Simmias would be glad to probe the argument further; like children, you are haunted with a fear that when the soul leaves the body, the wind may really blow her away and scatter her…… Cebes answered with a smile: Then, Socrates, you must argue us out of our fears—and yet, strictly speaking, they are not our fears, but there is a child within us to whom death is a sort of hobgoblin; him too we must persuade not to be afraid when he is alone with him in the dark. Socrates said: Let the voice of the charmer be applied daily until you have charmed him away. And where shall we find a good charmer of our fears, Socrates, when you are gone? Hellas, he replied, is a large place, Cebes, and has many good men, and there are barbarous races not a few: seek for him among them all, far and wide, sparing neither pains nor money; for there is no better way of using your money. And you must not forget to seek for him among yourselves too; for he is nowhere more likely to be found. (Plato, Phoedon, XXIV)

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Refreshed by these words, the disciples are now more willing to proceed. Socrates then continues with his arguments concluding that the soul always brings life and therefore cannot bring about the opposite of this, namely death. The soul is therefore immortal and imperishable and, if the body dies, the soul, being incorruptible and imperishable, continues to live, separating itself from the body. And after verifying the agreement of his disciples and thus concluding, Socrates’ arguments imperceptibly move from the now proven immortality of the soul to what will happen after the death of the body, the fate of souls, the nature of the earth and the sky, the Tartarus, with its four rivers, the final judgment of the dead, the delights for the just and the sufferings for the wicked. But, after dwelling long on this account, he surprisingly says the following words: No sensible man would insist that these things are as I have described them, but 1think it is fitting for a man to risk the belief—for the risk is a noble one—that this, or something like this, is true about our souls and their dwelling places, since the soul is evidently immortal, and a man should repeat this to himself as if it had been prolonging my tale… Now you, Simmias, Cebes and the rest of you, Socrates continued, will each take that journey at some other time but my fated day calls me now, as a tragic character might say, and it is about time for me to have my bath, for 1think it better to have it before I drink the poison and save the women the trouble of washing the corpse. (Plato Phoedon, LXIII)

In Phoedon the myth seems to perform two main functions. First, it tells something that is not necessarily true and certainly not demonstrable, but still possible or at least plausible; second, the myth plays the role of enchanting the “little boy,” to appease fear, to regulate the emotions of the body, which logic and proper demonstration cannot do. But the myth also has other functions, because, in the myth of the cave (Plato, The Republic VII, I–III) the aim is to facilitate the understanding of reasoning about the world of ideas and its relationship with the world of tangible reality. The story of prisoners who cannot turn to look at people who pass by, but can only recognize them from the perceived shadows, is a vivid metaphor of the condition of the human being who can only draw on ideas in itself indirectly, through the simulacra of immanence trying to resist the temptation to exchange for each other. At the same time, seen with modern eyes, reading this myth we can see it as a metaphor of the condition of modern man who draws on reality through the screen of television, mobile phone or computer. One can say then that, in Plato, between sensitive knowledge or belief (doxa) and discursive thinking (dianoia o noesis), is the mythical tale, which performs a multiplicity of functions such as exploring the world of possibility, going beyond the boundary within which logic must stop, regulating emotions, helping to better understand, through the use of narrative, metaphor, analogy, and philosophical parable, what can hardly be understood through the exclusive use of formal logic.

The Multiplicity of Thoughts In the previous chapter, the etymological origins of narration and recounting have been traced. This work led to the discovery of the link, in cognitive archaeology, between counting and recounting and, in the list, it was possible to see a mixed form

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of both arithmetic and narrative. Counting and recounting are two words that, in their closeness, make us understand the problem of the diversity of thoughts and, at the same time, of their inseparable connection. In this chapter and in the next, I continue in this direction in order to highlight the ways in which narrative comprehension makes use of both a mode closer to counting and one closer to storytelling. If we think, for example, of the hermetic tradition starting with Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary character in pre-classical age traditionally believed to be the author of the corpus hermeticum, we realize that it was based on the idea of initiatory secrecy and cosmic sympathy which, through the “signs” imprinted by God on things to make them easily connected to each other, authorizes the use of an ambiguous language, made up of symbols and metaphors and the search for analogies, even vague or fortuitous, but evaluated as fundamental, capable of justifying the coincidence of opposites and of overcoming the principle of noncontradiction and identity. Now, this form of thought, which appears to have so little “logic,” was inspiring not only to alchemists, cabalists, Pico della Mirandola, and Marsilio Ficino, creeping into the folds of Renaissance Neoplatonism and Christian cabalism, but also came to feed much of modern culture, from magic to science, from Paracelsus to Galileo, influencing scientists such as Copernicus, Kepler, and Newton (Eco 1990). In fact, hermetic thought has long been considered the emblem of sectarian thought, esoteric, mystical, magical, and antagonistic to scientific development and reason. However, studies in the history of science, such as those produced by Paolo Rossi (1997), have allowed us to move from an enlightened and positivist image of the history of scientific knowledge, understood as a sort of triumphal march out of the darkness of magical superstitions, to a much more integrated image that recognizes the significant weight that the magical hermetic tradition had to exert on the scientific revolution. Not only did it live in the same great scientists together with their scientific experiments and discoveries, but it also brought with it fertile demands for the advancement of knowledge. The notion that there are different ways of knowing and thinking, therefore, born in the Greek world, accompanies the development of human knowledge up to the present day, because even in the use of analogies and metaphors, in the way of understanding textual interpretation, in the same modern deconstructionism, it is possible to grasp the signs of this story that sees the voices of rationalist and scientific thought intertwined with those of magical and hermetic thought. This interweaving has generated conceptions of the human mind capable of highlighting different and coexisting aspects or faculties. Pascal, for example, spoke of esprit de geometrie and esprit de finesse. In the esprit de geometrie the principles are very concrete, but far from commonly used, so much so that it is difficult to turn the mind toward them, out of lack of habit, but for little that the mind does, it sees them clearly. On the contrary, in the esprit de finesse: … in the intuitive mind [esprit de finesse] the principles are found in common use and are before the eyes of everybody. One has only to look, and no effort is necessary; it is only a question of good eyesight, but it must be good, for the principles are so subtle and so numerous that it is almost impossible but that some escape notice… These principles are so

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fine and so numerous that a very delicate and very clear sense is needed to perceive them, and to judge rightly and justly when they are perceived, without for the most part being able to demonstrate them in order as in mathematics [geometers], because the principles are not known to us in the same way, and because it would be an endless matter to undertake it… We must see the matter at once, at one glance, and not by a process of reasoning, at least to a certain degree. And thus it is rare that mathematicians [geometers] are intuitive and that men of intuition are mathematicians [geometers], because mathematicians [geometers] wish to treat matters of intuition mathematically and make themselves ridiculous, wishing to begin with definitions and then with axioms, which is not the way to proceed in this kind of reasoning. Intuitive minds [esprit de finesse], on the contrary, being thus accustomed to judge at a single glance, are so astonished when they are presented with propositions of which they understand nothing, and the way to which is through definitions and axioms so sterile, and which they are not accustomed to see thus in detail, that they are repelled and disheartened. (Pascal 1670; English translation, 2016, 1)

Here, then, is a scientist and a philosopher, who lived in 1600, so early as to anticipate a distinction that for the moment we can identify in mathematical and logical–formal knowledge and in knowledge apparently more banal that is linked to everyday life but refined, because it is able to enter into this tender banality of things to identify between the folds the specificities and differences depending on the situations and contexts. This is a thought that judges at a glance and is therefore not discursive, not demonstrative, not slow, not ordered but quick and ostensive. It is very rare to find an example of a thinker as subtle and so acute as to highlight the specificities and differences between two cognitive processes that seem perfectly efficient when applied each in their respective domains, but also so clumsy when used in the field of others. It is rare, yet Giambattista Vico will do something similar when a century later he speaks of geometric reason (Cartesian), which applies precisely to the fictitious world of mathematics, which is capable of distinguishing, but only in this world, the true from the false and the ingenuity understood as an operation of the mind toward all that is new (Vico 1725, 9). This faculty has bodily roots, is the basis of all human inventions, has the ability to grasp analogies by unifying separate things, finding what is similar between heterogeneous data. Ingenuity uses language as a powerful tool and, within it, the metaphor. Ingenuity, together with memory and fantasy, is the basis of poetry (as an activity capable of stirring emotions) and operates in a world where the plausible reigns or the probable understood as a problematic truth that lies between the true and the false. If we look at the history of philosophy and psychology, the list of theories that have spoken of multiform ingenuity is long, perhaps because science and art, logic and rhetoric, nature sciences, and spiritual sciences have always generated continuous distinctions among faculties, intelligences, thoughts, and among fields of knowledge and domains of experience. Just to mention a few examples, Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, spoke of Apollonian spirit and Dionysian spirit to illustrate the two essential impulses from which the Attic tragedy arose. The first, based on order and harmony of form, and the second, on intoxication and formless enthusiastic exaltation, have become emblems of reason and intuition respectively. Freud, at the beginning of the

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twentieth century, opened up a whole new path by imagining a primary and a secondary process and showing in a subtle way how they interacted in daily life, in dreams, in parapraxia, in lapses, and in neurotic symptoms. When the study of intelligence was combined with statistics, with the use of factor analysis, he created new distinctions linked to the notion of problem-solving skills: words to be coupled, cubes to be joined, figures to be recomposed, cartoons to be ordered in time, numbers to be remembered and calculated. Thus, problems of a different nature seemed to require a different logical process. But were these individual abilities part of a general intelligence underlying them, as Spearman had proposed in the mid-twentieth century (1946), or, as Thurstone (1938) had sustained and then Guilford (1967) had demonstrated, each one is partially independent, thus giving reason to what Pascal said “And so it is rare that geometers are fine spirits, and that fine spirits are geometers”? More recently, the issue of multiform ingenuity has become even more central to the scientific debate. This is for various reasons. 1. The notion that intelligence was not a general and unique skill has emerged with increasing clarity thanks to studies on multiple intelligences conducted within the “zero project” by Gardner (2004), or on the triarchic conception of intelligence by Sternberg (1988). 2. Studies on the history of science have brought to light how, as early as the Renaissance, science and art were closely linked and how magical thought and hermeticism had favored the birth of modern science, as I mentioned earlier. It was Leonardo da Vinci, then, who embodied the man of multiform ingenuity, who united in himself the genius of art, technology, and science, and Galileo Galilei, the example of a scientist who was the inventor of modern science without disdaining interests for astrology and practices, which with modern eyes, may appear heterodox. 3. In the field of cognitive studies, research on emotional life and on cognitive processes has become so close as to form a new field of research known as emotion cognition, on which there are now specifically dedicated scientific journals. 4. Traditionally separate fields such as decision theory, economics, and medicine have been partially combined, giving rise to research into forecasting, probability attribution, and cognitive heuristics in the economic and medical fields. When people have to make important and calculated choices, do they follow the principle of maximum expected utility and act rationally? Do they take into account the statistical probability, or do they make systematic errors such as to suggest that a different type of reasoning becomes dominant at that time? 5. The development of neuroscience and research on cases of split-brain has made it possible to better understand the way in which the two hemispheres operate. 6. And finally, the turning point of narrative in science and psychology. The narrative turning point in the sciences has had the function of highlighting the constructive character of scientific knowledge and its resemblance to a coherent narrative capable of joining voids and spaces of years, as in historiography (White 1980; Mink 1980), or even millennia, as in paleontology (Gould 1987, 1995). In

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anthropology, the stories of the “informers” have become an irreplaceable source of stories and the anthropologist’s account is the most honest way to record them to the extent that he was able to not hide his subjectivity as an observer (Geertz 1973, 1988); in sociology, life stories, such as those of southern immigrants in Turin, with their transitions, turning points, and autobiographical reconstructions, have become the most appropriate ways to study lives within a society in motion (Portelli 2007; Passerini 1984); in psychoanalysis and psychiatry, the stories told by patients have become the most natural tool for anamnestic reconstruction, and the patient’s medical relationship has been conceived as a narrative dialogue (Spence 1982; Schafer 1980; Lysaker and Lysaker 2002). In the medical field, during the 1980s, a current of so-called “narrative medicine” emerged, with the aim of enhancing what everyone knew but on which no one had worked, namely that the patient, with his or her medical history, tells a story, that the doctor does the same when he or she thinks about it or talks to his or her colleagues, and that the story that the patient and the doctor tell exerts a not inconsiderable influence on health and illness. Today, narrative medicine has become an indispensable perspective to recover the role that was once covered by bed side medicine, the medicine that the doctor used when, sitting by the patient’s bed, talked to him to understand how those sufferings came about and how they could be faced (Kleinman 1988; Charon 2001, 2006). In neurology, Alexander Luria (1975) and Oliver Sacks (1985, 1995) were able to write about the “man who forgot nothing” or about the one “who exchanged his wife for a hat” through narrative reconstruction. In psychology, the second cognitive revolution by scientists such as Jerome Bruner (1986), Theodore Sarbin (1986), and Donald Polkinghorne (1988) has given rise to a perspective that has allowed a huge amount of previously disaggregated data, concepts, and results to be linked together. Just to make a list, even if it's messy:The fact that children and adults classify reality, depending on the situation, in a categorical or functional way; the relationship between Psychology of Novel and mathematical logical reasoning; the way autobiographical memory works; the fact that thought moves according to a paradigmatic and syntagmatic way; script theory and its use in the classification of events; the psychology of common sense and its way of attributing causes to events; the role of the theory of mind in the understanding of the other; the importance attributed to pragmatics in the study of language; the relationship between the development of attachment in adulthood and autobiographical memory; studies of the Self; cognitive heuristics; textual hermeneutics. We will return to these themes and will refer to them in the next chapters.

The Errors of Reasoning Today we are in an era that recognizes the richness of human ingenuity in its multiformity, understood as a heterogeneity organized in a system with specific components or subsystems. However, there are different views on how to understand these

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different specificities. The field of studies on the errors of reasoning represents an important field of investigation from which interesting visions on the way thoughts work have been derived. This research has shown the extent to which decisions depend on the assumptions with which the information is processed. The very need we have to simplify the world makes us slaves to this same simplification, leading us to overlook aspects that would undermine our reassuring sense of coherence. Nassim Nicholas Taleb (2007) remembers a study in which a female participants were asked to choose out of 12 pairs of tights the one they preferred and to explain why. The women interviewed chose their favorite pair based on criteria such as the texture, the touch, or the color, when in reality all the tights were identical! The assumption that because they had to choose a pair, the 12 pairs were all different from each other had led them to look for differences and to justify their choices. It has to be said that this trick played by researchers against the women could be easily circumvented once they became wiser and more prudent toward those who interview them and submit them to experiments was otherwise harmless. However, there are other conditions that are particularly difficult to monitor, such as optical illusions, which can only be neutralized by considerable perceptive efforts, reaching the point of seeing what they mask or not seeing what they suggest. Some errors of reasoning may also be the result of a cognitive illusion. It seems that when faced with certain problems, the human being very quickly puts in place easy ways to solve them. They have been brought to light mainly by two scholars, Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky. One of these fast roads consists of judging the frequency or intensity of a phenomenon on the basis of their fluency or the ease with which the examples of that phenomenon come to mind. Thus, an air accident is able to temporarily increase the availability of the category air accidents and lead the person to believe that they are more frequent than they really are. Kahneman and Tversky defined this way of reasoning as the “heuristic of availability.” The subtle way in which it works is highlighted by research, such as that of Schwarz and his collaborators (1991). A group of participants were asked to cite six examples where they had been assertive and then to evaluate their assertiveness on a scale of measure. Another group of participants were asked to cite 12 examples where they had been assertive and to assess their assertiveness. The people who had to look for six examples found them without too much difficulty and then considered themselves very assertive. On the contrary, those who, having had to find 12, did not find them, and ended up judging themselves to be less assertive than the former group. What is important, therefore, is not so much the number of examples (memories) that are made available, but the ease with which they come to mind. Failure to find 12 examples led people in the second group to underestimate themselves. The heuristics of availability are closely linked to the fluency of memory. If we think about it, it seems natural that the human being immediately uses his own experience of the past to judge the present (as already seen with Schank’s theory). Kahneman and Tversky also identified other heuristics, such as representativeness. In this case, the strength of the assumption is not provided by the fluency but

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from the stereotype, a sort of very significant representation, in many cases socially constructed, of a given phenomenon. Representativeness also appears to be a socially useful heuristic because, as Kahneman notes, in most cases, people who behave in a friendly way are actually friendly; those who subscribe to the “New York Times” are graduates rather than simply holders of a diploma; people who have an aggressive driving guide  are more likely to be young women than older women. Thus, there is something useful about a heurist like this. The point is that it should be kept under control because, faced with the question “on the New York subway you see someone reading the “New York Times,” what are they more likely to be, a graduate or nongraduate?” The use of this heuristics would lead to the choice of the first alternative, ignoring the fact that on the New York subway those who do not have a university degree are the majority. The fact is that, being fast and easy, a heurist tends to ignore the conditional probability—it is true that it is more likely that those who read the “New York Times” have a degree—but this connotation that only cultured people read the newspaper has to contend with another aspect that is likely to pass into second place—the type of people who use the subway (Kahneman 2011). One of the most famous experiments conducted by Kahneman and Tversky is that involving a girl named Linda (Tversky and Kahneman 1983). Although it is well known, it is worth dwelling on because it concerns a central point dealt with in this chapter. Linda is of course the name of the protagonist of a scenario invented by the two authors that reads as follows: Linda is 31 years old, single, outspoken, and very bright. She majored in philosophy. As a student, she was deeply concerned with issues of discrimination and social justice, and also participated in anti-nuclear demonstrations. What is the most likely alternative? Linda’s a bank teller; Linda is a bank teller and a militant in the feminist movement.

Several subsequent experiments on this question have shown unequivocally that most respondents chose, against all logic, the second option. Only in one experiment was this figure not confirmed (Kahneman 2011). The same mistake is not made, however, when faced with a dry question like this one: Which alternative is most likely? Mark has hair. Mark has blonde hair.

Respondents have no doubt that the first is the most likely option. The case of Linda demonstrates the strength of the heuristics of representativeness that leads to violation of the principle of conjunction. According to this principle, to be both bank cashier (A) and feminist movement militant (B) is a subset to be being a bank cashier (A&B   A, which violates the principle of conjunction. A story like this, so plausible and coherent, is endowed with such a suggestive force as to ignore any other logical principle. As Kahneman himself says, “The most coherent stories are not necessarily the most likely, but they are plausible.” Studies on heuristics and how they can lead to errors of reasoning have opened up new and very diverse perspectives. According to some authors, the results of this research should lead educators to educate children and adults to use more logical reasoning, to know the theory of probability in order not to make mistakes such as overestimating graduates reading the “New York Times” on the subway. Others, on the other hand, believe that the fact that heuristics, in certain situations, are unreliable does not mean that they should never be used, because in many other cases it is essential to use them, also in view of the conditions of uncertainty in which we live and the need to make rapid choices on the basis of the few data available. According to these authors, among whom Kahneman himself is one, it is rather a question of knowing the weaknesses of our cognitive system and of making these heuristics learn to dialogue with logical processes of a different nature. The suspicion that heuristics are not necessarily errors of reasoning was also supported by Gigerenzer (2007). The author starts from considerations such as these to propose his theory of intuitive decisions, based on what he calls thumb rules. Gigerenzer cites an example from baseball. The players, to catch the ball, follow an intuitive rule that works approximately like this: “look at the ball, run and adjust your speed so as to keep the angle of the look constant.” It may seem curious, but that is right, the human being knows how to do things intuitively that would require long and complicated operations to be performed logically or, as Richard Dawkins says in The Selfish Gene: When a man throws a ball high in the air and catches it again, he behaves as if he had solved a set of differential equations in predicting the trajectory of the ball. He may neither know nor care what a differential equation is, but this does not affect his skill with the ball. At some subconscious level, something functionally equivalent to the mathematical ­calculations is going on. Similarly, when a man takes a difficult decision, after weighing up all the pros and cons, and all the consequences of the decision that he can imagine, he is doing the functional equivalent of a large ‘weighted sum’ calculation, such as a computer might perform. (Dawkins 1989, 96)

According to Gigerenzer, this unconscious mathematical calculation is contained in the intuition process. This ability, which is sometimes overshadowed by that considered the most noble of reasoning, allows us to quickly reach a conclusion on the

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basis of simple rules that are transmitted evolutionarily and learned from the environment. Intuition doesn’t just work in solving motor-perceptive problems such as baseball. A very well-studied field is that of how people decide when they have to buy a product. Research (Gigerenzer 2007) shows that when there is a lot of information to help with making a choice, choices are made less well, as is the case in supermarkets that can offer as many as a hundred varieties of olive oil. Having more information, more time, and more alternatives damages the quality of the choice. The rule of thumb, or heuristic rule, states: “choose the most important information and ignore everything else.” As Gigerenzer observes: “Our brain seems to have congenital mechanisms, such as forgetting or starting with little, that protect us from some dangers arising from the excess of information. Without cognitive limitations we would be less intelligent than we are” (Gigerenzer 2007, 38). Thus, on the basis of how objects are illuminated, we estimate their volume or distance, on the basis of where and how a person looks at them; we estimate their interest, on the basis of some simple intuitive rules such as kindness and imitation; we emotionally regulate the relationship with the other. These rules of thumb are those that lead to choosing friends, girlfriend, and wife, as no rational rule or computer could help to do. According to Gigerenzer, therefore, both in the field of human choices, every day, and in choices that should be even more thoughtful, such as financial investments, intuition is far better than logic. But how does this theory fare with the fallacy of heuristics, for example, in the case of Linda? Gigerenzer’s objection to Kahneman is that the linguistic formulation of this story is ambiguous. In fact, it can be read in two ways. First way: “Out of 100 Lindas, are they more the Lindas working in a bank or the Lindas who work in the bank and that are also activists?” The second way is as follows: “Given the scenario presented, is it more plausible that Linda is a banker or that she is a banker and a feminist?” This second possibility is also encouraged by the conversational rule of relevance: “Since you give me this description by Linda I think you want to know from me which possibility fits best with this description.” It would therefore be a misunderstanding of what the researcher asks and not an inability to use the rule of conjunction, so much so that, without the scenario, the question is solved correctly. This consideration raises the question of misunderstandings in the research, because whatever question is posed to people in an investigation, it must always be placed within a relational framework and the results must therefore be read taking into account the interpretative context on the basis of which the subject is called to express himself. But it is precisely this ambiguity that generates the misunderstanding that, in Linda’s experiment, brings out the problem of two different ways of thinking when responding to the story presented. The first way of reading (“Out of 100 Lindas, are they more the Lindas working in a bank or the Lindas who work in the bank and that are also activists?”) requires the use of the concept of probability, whereas the second (“Which possibility fits best with this description”) requires use of the concept of plausibility. The idea of

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probability is subject to the rule of conjunction and follows a categorical logic, whereas the idea of plausibility is not. Piaget was perhaps the first scholar of children who was thought to have addressed this problem. In his studies on the development of operational thought he showed that most 7- to 8 -year-old children, faced with a collection of yellow and green primroses and other flowers, did not solve problems such as “Are there more primroses or more flowers?” (or more yellow primroses or more primroses) answering that there were more primroses than flowers (and more yellow primroses than primroses). According to Piaget (Piaget and Inhelder 1967), the preoperative child is not able to take into account, at the same time, the part and the whole and to understand correctly both the additive relationships (A + A′) = B, and the subtractive ones (B − A) = A′, and their inverse relationship. The idea of probability, therefore, implies recourse to the idea of category, to the hierarchy between categories, and to the appropriate use of quantifiers, such as “all” and “some.” Adults are able to solve a problem such as: “Out of 100 adults are either bankers or bankers and activists (A or A&B)” When the description provided by the scenario depicting the individual case is missing, the conjunction rule is easily applied. The problem arises when an appropriate and meaningful scenario pushes toward a type of solution based on giving coherence and converging traits toward a plausible story. The person then tends to reason by asking: “since you give me this description, how likely is it that Linda has the characteristic A (working in a bank), or that she has the characteristic A&B (working in a bank and being feminist)”? In doing so, it follows the less is more rule and uses a specific form of thinking. This way of reasoning first takes into account all the information contained in the scenario and reads it by putting it together so that it fits together like a puzzle. For example, one might think: to say that Linda is simply a “bank teller” and not a “bank teller and activist” means to admit that she can also be a “bank teller who is dedicated to surfing” (or football, or weightlifting), but all this information does not fit well with what is described by the scenario. Therefore, given the fact that Linda is a bank teller, a property provided for in both options, to give a response that is consistent with the scenario is more plausible than being “bank teller and activist.” Being a bank teller and activist is “less” because it represents a subset of being a bank teller (or activist), but it is “more” because it is more informative, and it is more plausible (than simply being a bank teller) because it better represents the type of scenario that the experimenter has presented. Let us dwell on this second possibility of reasoning, that scholars of probability attribution consider to be fallacious. This type of reasoning is no different from that used by the doctor when making a diagnosis and reconnecting the different symptoms in a syndrome, or by the investigator when asking: “Given all these clues who can be the killer?” The question, at the end of the day, is the relationship between the part and the whole. According to a formal logic that overlooks the content and is based, in fact, on the form, between the part and the whole, the relationships are of the type “part  whole), and this happens when we have to

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reason about the content, such as the events of life or when we have to evaluate individual cases such as clinical cases or judicial cases “part > whole.” The hypothesis that heuristics are the result of a fallacy in reasoning has been criticized by several authors (Zukier and Pepitone 1984; Zukier 1986; Bruner 1986) according to whom the use of a form of intuitive or non-extensive reasoning depends on the fact that it is a real type of reasoning, and not an error. This type of reasoning is put into practice in the conditions of everyday life when one operates under conditions of uncertainty and one does not have time to implement all those procedures and controls typical of logical reasoning that can be used when we have enough time and can decide calmly. In the world of small numbers, the person assumes that the data found are typical in relation to his theoretical assumptions and tries to reason by building a model of the situation (Johnson-Laird 1983). In a research project conducted more than 30 years ago, Zukier (1986) presented the participants with descriptions of personalities, saying that they had been randomly selected from a sample of 30 engineers and 70 lawyers and asked them to indicate, for each description, the probability that it referred to a lawyer or an engineer. A description said: “Mario doesn’t show much interest in social and political problems, he spends a lot of free time doing carpentry work or responding to mathematical puzzles.” By breaking the law of probability, the subjects said that Mario is an engineer. As Zukier points out, the more a person’s description is informative about their characteristics and approaches a stereotype, the less the logical principles of probability are followed. In fact, if the same subjects are given a non-informative description such as: “Antonio lives in a residential area, is very successful at work, and is esteemed by his colleagues, has a wife and two children,” they took into account the statistical probability and replied that Antonio was a lawyer. This example is a good illustration of the way in which the two types of thought are carried out. In the absence of sufficient information to clarify the identity of the character, the subjects rely on a process that proceeds from top to bottom. They make use of the probability calculation on the basis of which they draw indications for the individual case: “given what I know about the frequency of the general category, what is the probability that a given case belongs to that category?” When, on the other hand, there is enough information to be able to construct a story of the character (an engineer deals with mechanical problems, or mathematical problems, and not social problems), people rely on another system of thought that proceeds from the bottom up, a thought that produces plausible stories, reasonable, although not necessarily true. Those who use it try to build a complete picture on an individual case to come to understand the singularity and originality of the person. To this end, they collect all available information about it through a coherent narrative. Intensionality is preferred to extensionality. It is interesting to note that these two types of reasoning have their own voluntariness. That is, people use one or the other depending on the context. In an experiment conducted by Zukier himself, similar to the one described above on architects and lawyers, some of the participants were given the task of reasoning as if they

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were a scientist, and some of them were given the task of using sensitivity and intuition as if they were a clinician. Those to whom a clinical centration had been suggested more easily used a narrative orientation; conversely, those to whom a scientific centration had been suggested reasoned according to an extensional procedure and took into account the frequency. They reasoned as follows: “If you ask me a question like this and then ask me to reason as if I were a clinician, it is obvious that you want me to carefully analyze the scenario; if instead you want me to reason as if I were a scientist, i.e., that you look at the numbers, it is obvious that you are asking me to reason only in terms of numerical probabilities.” In conclusion, in all these research projects, in the presence of a coherent and evocative scenario of a possible interpretative hypothesis, the people questioned tended not to take into account the frequency with which the phenomenon happens, but they reason by trying to build a unitary picture, a plausible story that satisfies the information provided by the scenario. On the other hand, the fact that, as in Zukier’s research (1986), when a person is asked to reason in clinical terms, he or she uses different logical processes than when he or she is asked to reason in scientific terms suggests that the person chooses to use one form or another of reasoning, depending on the context.

Systems of Reasoning Discussing the field of research he inaugurated on the errors of reasoning, Kahneman (2011) hypothesized that heuristics are not real errors of reasoning but ways in which a different kind of thought works than the one that does not fall into pitfalls (such as those of Linda or the readers of the “New York Times” in the subway) and that generally allows the use of categorical logic according to which A>A&B. The author is careful to name these two different ways of thinking; thus, he uses a conceptually neutral terminology that prevents them from being mischaracterized by misleading labels, such as logical and nonlogical thinking, etc. He calls them System 1 (S1) and System 2 (S2) and does not hesitate to point out immediately that S1 and S2 are two characters, a sort of metaphor for the model he proposes. In Table 9.1 the respective differences are highlighted. Kahneman’s proposal for the S1 and S2 systems has the merit of articulating two ways of thinking without one prevailing over the other or being considered superior, because each of them is specialized in something that the other cannot do as well. From the way in which he describes them, they seem like two brothers: S1, always active, is capable of defrosting himself, especially in the normal world, in many contingent issues when it is necessary to decide quickly. Unfortunately, however, perhaps because of the same haste, perhaps because he does not like the idea of chance, in an effort to make sense of the oddities that he even notes and at which he is surprised, he tends to see causal relationships between events that are simply related. It is therefore weak in statistical reasoning (because it exaggerates the probability of unlikely events occurring) and focuses on existing evidence, ignoring

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Table 9.1  The two systems of reasoning according to Kahneman System 1 (S1) 1. It is always on, you cannot “switch it off” 2. It is based on a type of parallel processing 3. It is automatic, fast, not tiring, ambiguous, for the most part unaware 4. It is predominantly nonverbal 5. It is governed by the limbic system and in particular by the amygdala 6. It keeps the idea of the normal world up to date by distinguishing the surprising from the normal 7. As a default condition it tends to confirm and believe 8. It applies the laws of large numbers to small numbers, giving priority to content over form

System 2 (S2) 1. It is lazy, it is led by S1 2. It is based on a sequential processing 3. It is voluntary, slow, tiring, unambiguous, conscious 4. It is predominantly verbal 5. It is governed by the prefrontal cortex 6. It carries out a detailed processing of the oddities reported by S1 7. It is capable of doubting, it uses its memory, it knows how to find counter-examples 8. It is more able to consider the form and use the laws of large numbers

missing evidence. He is very good at integrating data from different fields into a single framework; thus, he becomes a little adventurous whenever, if making a decision, it would be advisable to consider other ways: stopping, thinking, doubting. Sometimes, however, when he encounters difficulties that are insurmountable, he is honest and modest enough to turn to S2 for detailed processing. S2 instead seems to be lazily lying down, a sort of older brother who lets the younger do everything, without falling asleep at all and intervening when the other calls him and needs him, maybe when faced with some abnormal event. This laziness of the older brother is probably healthy for the human being because its interventionism would risk packaging the whole system, when instead it is necessary to  decide quickly without thinking too much about it. But, when the older brother decides to take care of its younger one, it is able to consider evidence contrary to the hypothesis or the lack of evidence in favor, to reason on large numbers, and to accept the idea of the case, to direct attention toward demanding mental activities that require complex calculations. It should be added, however, that this older brother, perhaps out of laziness, perhaps because induced by what the other tells him and by the evocative power of his memories, can slip away without putting into practice the reflectivity of which he would be capable. It should also be noted that property no. 5 states that the two systems refer to two different brain structures, one more related to emotions and the other to executive and reflective functions. S1 is also capable of surprising on the basis of a model of normality (property no. 6). However, this model must be updated when anomalous events occur that cannot be ignored and need to be explained. For this, S1 uses the memory that is provided by S2. But, in the formulation of the evidence in favor of a hypothesis, S1 it sometimes tends to falsify reality by seeing only what suits him best and showing confidence in judgements, unlike S2, which is instead ready to doubt (property no. 7).

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All these studies on the errors of reasoning lead us to seriously consider the hypothesis that in reality people think differently depending on the contexts and purposes they pursue. The daily life, which is based on small numbers, the need to make decisions in a short time, the interpersonal relationships that constantly propose the question “but what kind of person do I have in front of me?,” “what did he want to tell me?” are all conditions that push people to make use of stories to understand reality. A story must be plausible and show how a premise and a main event consistently lead to conclusions. The stories deal with specific and concrete individual cases and therefore deal with small numbers above all. They are therefore the best resource for understanding what is happening to us moment by moment. The S1 system, with its speed and automaticity, with its attention between what is normal and what is abnormal, could perhaps be responsible for our narrative creativity. On the other hand, the logic based on taxonomies that presupposes a hierarchical architecture and the laws of probability that are based on large numbers remind us that there is a formal way of dealing with human issues that transcends individual events and the specific contingencies of reality. The logic of categories and the law of large numbers are two formidable tools for keeping the rules of reasoning separate from those forms of sensitive, plausible, and likely appearances that can mislead. At least, S2, with its own slowness, sequentiality, and prudence, with its desire to seek counter-examples and verifications, so aware and able to find to reason in abstract terms, ignoring the suggestions that come from the content, seems to be responsible for this type of reasoning. But, in Kahneman’s proposal, there is another important aspect: the two systems do not work separately but interact, at least under certain conditions, for example, when you cannot give an answer to the inconsistency, you cannot regularize it. If the two systems S1 and S2 interact, then perhaps it is not a question of looking for different types of thought but different types of interaction between the two systems. This hypothesis has received support from brain studies.

The Two Hemispheres Studies on brain areas and their functioning in relation to cognitive and emotional processes have been extraordinarily developed in the last decades, mainly thanks to the development of neuroscience and new techniques of data recording. During this period, the knowledge of cerebral asymmetry has particularly grown thanks to the study of epileptic patients on whom surgical resection of telencephalic connections had been practiced, the study of patients with anatomical lesions, and experimental research on brain areas. These studies have led to the construction of a new model of the brain and the links between the different brain areas both within each hemisphere and between the two hemispheres. This has produced a wealth of literature on cerebral asymmetry, i.e., the way in which the two left and right hemispheres of the brain, including the amygdala, the frontal orbit cortex, the hippocampus, and the prefrontal cortex, work differently.

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Some studies, for example, have revealed cerebral asymmetry and the attribution of certain functions to the right or left hemisphere with regard to the intensity of emotions (Schore 2000), the hedonic tone, or the pleasant or unpleasant value of experiences (Davidson 1992), approaching or avoiding behavior, social or basic emotions, more “receptive” or assertive motor activities (Trevarthen 1996). In some cases, as Siegel (1999) pointed out, a sort of “dichotomania” has come about that has prompted researchers and disseminators to outline the way in which the two brains work, even going so far as to distinguish between cultures that work more with the right hemisphere and cultures that use the left hemisphere more. The one presented in Table 9.2 should not be read as yet another dichotomous bipartition but as a representation of the brain functions according to whether they are managed by one or the other hemisphere. For example, the right hemisphere is more devoted to nonverbal than verbal processes, but it also analyzes verbal processes, as we will see in a moment. Table 9.2 also concerns the attribution of some of the main functions to the right and left hemispheres with regard to consciousness (Gazzaniga 1985, 2012; Siegel 1999; Damasio 1994; Tuker et al. 1995; Trevarthen 1996; Goldberg and Costa 1981; Martin et al. 1997; Kandel 2012). In table, the right hemisphere carries out functions more closely linked to the relationship with the external world, through the perception of space and faces, the recording of the emotions of others, the episodic memory, and the sensitivity to the context. It performs these functions in a parallel, rapid, and holistic way, starting from the data of the experience (bottom up), with a sensitivity to everything that is new. It seems that this hemisphere acts with extreme speed and at a glance registers what is interesting, producing a large amount of material that needs processing. That is what the left hemisphere is all about. It works more slowly, in a linear way, according to linguistic processing. It starts from assumptions that are familiar to it, Table 9.2  Functional specialization of the two cerebral hemispheres Right hemisphere 1. It is characterized by fast, holistic parallel processes. It specializes in nonverbal processes. As far as the verbal ones are concerned, it is able to understand the metaphor, the paradoxes, the polysemanticity, the humor 2. It has a more analog operation type 3. It is more specialized in episodic memory 4. It is more skilled in visual tasks that require complex interpretation; more skilled in visuo-­ spatial groupings; it deals with perceptual causality; it gives information on the emotional states of others 5. It is context dependent 6. It is an anomaly detector, notes the news 7. It provides content and clues for narrative and autobiographical processes

Left hemisphere 1. It is characterized by slow linear processes, of a logical linguistic type. It deals with the meaning of words, it carries out conscious attention; it is specialized in monosemantic analysis processes 2. It has a more digital operation type 3. It is more specialized in semantic memory 4. It is equipped with an “interpreter” module that is activated, especially in the presence of inconsistencies

5. It is context independent 6. Prefers and reduces what is new into what is familiar 7. It gathers clues to build a story, creates personal narratives

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from what it knows and assumes and tends to bring back, the sense of familiarity and what is known. It seems guided by the respect of the coherence on the basis of which it puts together the material provided by the right hemisphere, giving it a narrative form. To paraphrase Watzlawick (2011) about the impossibility of not communicating, the left hemisphere cannot but interpret, find a cause, give meaning, and that is why Gazzaniga (1985) named it interpreter. It interprets those inconsistencies that have been detected by the right hemisphere. Given the need to hypothesize, look for explanations, attribute causes, and interpret, this hemisphere can also construct empty narratives (i.e., without emotions and information derived from reading the mind) if it does not have sufficient data provided by the right hemisphere, just as the right hemisphere finds itself with very valuable information on reality, to which it cannot, however, attribute meaning if the left hemisphere does not come to its aid. As Siegel suggested, to avoid being empty shells, stories need to be integrated between the two hemispheres; to use a little schematicity; the right one must provide material taken from the interaction with the other and the left one must elaborate it in narrative form (Siegel and Hartzell 2003).

Conclusion Among the qualities of the “man of multiform ingenuity” there is one in particular upon which it is worth pausing to reflect. It consists of the ability to connect everything with everything. The human being is able to find possible connections between concepts, ideas, even situations that are very different from each other. The history of hermetic thought, the functioning of magical thought, the studies on cognitive development (as we see in the next chapter) show how important the ability to find analogies, similarities, and points of contact is. This ability to venture into acrobatic operations to establish daring forms of categorization or cause–effect links seems to be useful in facing and regularizing a world in which it is essential to find a logic. The history of hermetic thought is instructive in this regard and should teach how, in everyday life, hermeticism is a necessary property, even if it must be kept under control by the equally basic need to formulate plausible and falsifiable hypotheses. And here we come to a second consideration concerning the integrative nature of narrative processes. If we were to use the brothers’ metaphor for the two hemispheres, calling them left brother and right brother, we would find that these are a bit different from those described by Kahneman (brother S1 and brother S2). In fact, if we were tempted to make brother S2 coincide with the left brother because they have aspects in common such as linearity, slowness, and verbal processing, we should stop there, because the left brother is certainly not lazy but is just as active as the right one, does not necessarily perform complex tasks, is not necessarily voluntary. In this bipartition of functions, the two brothers, left and right, work at the same time, unlike what happens in the other bipartition, where S2 intervenes only when S1 needs it. In both theories, however, the fact that the two brothers work well or badly depends on whether they communicate with each other: in a word, they are integrated.

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In the specific case of the two hemispheres, their dialogue allows the elaboration of evolved narrative processes. Narrative processes are not placed in one of the two hemispheres in particular because, although as a linear and verbal form they are regulated by the left hemisphere, as content, and as an emotional understanding, they are more relevant to the right hemisphere. A third consideration to be made concerns a particular aspect of these cognitive processes, namely that of the relationship between normality and novelty, and relates to what has been written in previous chapters. Both in the bipartition of the two modes of thought traced by Kahneman and in the studies on interhemispheric asymmetry, in fact, cognitive processes are described that are specialized in interpreting what is discrepant from a known regularity. Itis the interpreter that deals with it, or, put another way, it is that inexhaustible need that the human being has to search for the sense of what happens to make predictions and to reduce the unknown, inside the known and the controllable. A story is then created to deal with an anomaly and to reduce it to regularity. As the narratives are at the meeting point of different types of thought, we can conclude that the narrative understanding of the other puts in place a different multiplicity of interpretative processes. On the one hand, parallel holistic processes of mirroring with others are put in place, through which the narrator makes contact with the emotional world, proving empathy; but, on the other hand, more linear processes are also used in narrative comprehension, which through language manage to create an inspectable, controllable, ordered, and causal representation. The well-formed story becomes an integration of both these processes, even if this integration sometimes favors faster processes that try to immediately find a narrative solution to something unexpected with an obscure meaning, whereas other times it favors slower processes that involve prolonged reasoning because it is more difficult to find a principle of normalization. In this chapter some fundamental concepts related to the processes of reasoning have been introduced. These processes are put into action especially in the narrative dialogue by both the narrator and the narratee. The narratee, which we are dealing with especially now, must be able to use these processes (brother 1 and brother 2; right hemisphere and left hemisphere) in an integrated way in order to fully understand what the narrator tells and what he intends to communicate. In the next chapter, we continue with the analysis of these aspects, deepening this integrative prerogative in the case of the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes of discourse. We will see how this prerogative allows great freedom in making connections and inferences thanks to the use of a form of logic such as fuzzy logic.

References Bruner, J. (1986). Actual minds, possible worlds. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Cavafy, C. P. (1993). Collected Poems. Translated by Edmund Keeley and Philip Sherrard. Princerton: Princeton University Press.

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Charon, R. (2001). Narrative medicine: form, function and ethics. Annals of Internal Medicine, 134(1), 83–87. Charon, R. (2006). Narrative medicine: honoring the stories of illness. New  York: Oxford University Press. Damasio, A. (1994). Descartes’ error: emotion, reason and the human brain. New  York: Avon Books. Davidson, R.  J. (1992). Emotion and affective style: hemispheric substrates. Psychological Science, 31, 39–43. Dawkins, R. (1989). The selfish gene. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Eco, U. (1990). I limiti della interpretazione. Milan: Bompiani. English edition: Eco, U. (1990). The limits of interpretation. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press. Gardner, H. (2004). Frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences. New York: Basic Books. Gazzaniga, M. S. (1985). The social brain. New York: Basic Books. Gazzaniga, M. S. (2012). Who’s in charge? New York: Harper Collins. Geertz, C. (1973). The interpretation of cultures. New York: Basic Books. Geertz, C. (1988). Works and lives: the anthropologist as author. Stanford: Stanford University Press. Gigerenzer, G. (2007). Gut feelings: the intelligence of the unconscious. New York: Viking Adult. Goldberg, E., & Costa, L. D. (1981). Hemisphere differences in the acquisition and use of descriptive systems. Brain Language, 14(1), 144–173. Gould, S. J. (1987). An urchin in the storm. New York: Norton. Gould, S. J. (1995). Uomini e fossili (pp. 5–63). Milan: RCS Libri & Grandi Opere. Guilford, J. P. (1967). The nature of human intelligence. New York: McGraw-Hill. Homer, (2018). Odyssey. Oxford: Oxford University Press.  Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1983). Mental Models, Towards a Cognitive Science of Language, Inference and Consciousness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kahneman, D. (2011). Thinking, fast and slow. Farrar: Straus and Giroux. Kandel, E. (2012). The age of insight: the quest to understand the unconscious in art, mind, and brain. New York: Random House. Kleinman, A. (1988). The illness narratives. New York: Basic Books. Lurija, A. (1975) Protiv redukcionizma v psychologij. Moscow, unpublished typewritten. English edition: The mind of a mnemonist: a little book about a vast memory. Harvard: Harvard University Press, 1987. Lysaker, P. H., & Lysaker, J. T. (2002). Narrative structure in psychosis: schizophrenia and disruptions in the dialogical self. Theory & Psychology, 12, 207–220. Martin, A., Wiggs, C. L., & Weisberg, J. (1997). Modulation of human medial temporal lobe activity by form, meaning or experience. Hippocampus, 7, 587–593. Mink, L. O. (1980). Everyman his or her own annalist. In W. J. T. Mitchell (Ed.), On narratives (pp. 233–239). Chicago: The University of Chicago Press. Pascal, B. (1670). Pensées de M. Pascal sur la religion et sur quelques autres sujets qui ont eté trouvées aprés sa mort parmis ses papiers. Paris: chez Guillaume Desprez. English edition: Thought. Quebec: Samizdat, 2016. Passerini, L. (1984). Torino operaia e fascismo. Una storia orale. Rome: Laterza. Piaget, J., & Inhelder, B. (1967). La genèse des structures logiques élémentaires. Paris: Delachaux et Niestlé. English edition: Inhelder, B., & Piaget, J. (1964). The early growth of logic in the child. New York: Norton. Plato. (2009, English edition). Phaedo. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Polkinghorne, D. E. (1988). Narrative knowing and the human sciences. New York: Suny Press. Portelli, A. (2007). Storie orali. Racconto, immaginazione, dialogo. Rome: Donzelli. Rossi, P. (1997). La nascita della scienza moderna. Rome: Laterza. English translation: The Birth of the modern science. New York: Wiley-Blackwell. 2001. Sacks, O. (1985). The man who mistook his wife for a hat. Duckworth: Touchstone. Sacks, O. (1995). An anthropologist on Mars: Seven paradoxical tales. New York: Knopf. Sarbin, T. (Ed.). (1986). Narrative psychology. New York: Praeger.

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Chapter 10

Narration and Fuzzy Logic

The Intersection of Sets

Fig. 10.1  Intersection of sets: an example of a fuzzy area

The superimposition of two sets can be represented as a partial sharing of properties between two different entities. The set theory helps us to understand that basic reasoning that we also have seen working in the case of Linda, where the conjunction between the two categories of “banker” and “activist” forms something new— “banker–activist”—at once similar and different from “banker” and “activist” taken separately. This new concept is a part of the whole, endowed with greater richness and intensionality and less extensionality than the two concepts generating and superimposed on them. Their relationship is hierarchical, as it is logical, which happens in taxonomies (Fig.10.1). If we wanted to use set theory to understand how thought works, however, we would be faced with two problems. The first problem arises when we want to place the categories “being a banker” and “being an activist” within concrete human events, humanizing, so to speak,

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those abstract categories. In fact, in this case Linda would not have simply substituted the two properties in herself because being a banker and an activist would also mean having a different relationship with colleagues than she would have if she were only a banker (and presumably also a different relationship with her family). The logical overlap, once transformed into a concrete case, poses the problem of the type of integration between two properties. The concept of role conflict shows in this regard how a working woman, who has become a mother, encounters the problem of making these two roles compatible. This means that thinking of a Linda as an activist, a banker, or an activist–banker means that Linda is represented in a completely different way depending on whether you are only talking about disembodied properties or about social roles in everyday life. If this is true, then the second problem arises, which is how to logically represent concrete human situations instead of abstract entities. In other words, how to predict Linda’s behavior when she is a banker and an activist. The answer given in the previous chapter is that when people do not use formal logic to solve Linda’s problem, they invent a story. Using a story could then be a way to make this prediction. Inventing a story can always be done, but inventing a good plausible story is a complex process and cannot be considered simply a loophole because one does not make use of logical thinking. Siegel argued that the narrative processes are the result of an integration between the two hemispheres. This indicates that in order to build useful narratives to tell and understand reality it is necessary to have sufficiently perceived what is happening, to grasp the general sense of what others do or feel, to be able to analyze and linearize it by defining the relationships before–after and cause–effect. As has been said, without the right hemisphere the narratives would be empty; without the left hemisphere the experiences would be incomprehensible. After all, even in the bipartition traced by Kahneman, where would we place the narrative processes? Which of the two brothers is good at using them? Bruner (1986) distinguished two modes of thought: the paradigmatic and the narrative. The paradigmatic thought is typical of scientific reasoning, it implies the construction of classes of equivalence, of hierarchies of categories with relations of inclusiveness, of propositions free from context, formal, abstract from time. When using it, the person must relate an individual case to general categories according to a vertical process of subordination and supraordination. It is nomothetic and paradigmatic. It makes use of pre-established, general categories and constructions, stored in the memory. This thought explores closed systems in which the overall models derive from the elements that compose them (e.g., in the calculation of the statements). It underlines the commonalities and similarities between the various phenomena for classification purposes. It uses extensive ways and sacrifices understanding to extension, wealth to rigor; it tries to eliminate ambiguities by choosing alternatives in order to determine what kind of explanation of phenomena is the right one. For this purpose, it uses truth criteria based on falsifiability and external validation. Narrative thought is mainly used in the context of everyday discourse and reasoning and finds its natural field of application in the social world. This is because narrative thinking seeks to interpret human facts by creating a story based on the

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actors’ intensionality and sensitivity to context. History is therefore an interpretative model of human social actions. Linguistically, narrative thought is syntagmatic in the sense that the axis of its language is horizontal and concerns all possible syntactic options in chaining words or phrases together. Narrative thinking is also idiographic, in the sense that it searches for laws relating to the individual case. In seeking the logic of human actions, it moves to the level of the intensionality of meanings, trying to reconstruct the richness of the individual case according to a unitary framework. The internal organization of thought is partitive rather than inclusive. This causes narrative thinking to produce themes or collections rather than categories or concepts. The whole and the elements are mutually determined. Although the distinction between paradigmatic and syntagmatic thought has received, and still receives, broad support and has been important in broadening the vision of human thought, in this chapter I would like to show how the same narrative processes, including the narrative understanding that makes use of stories, are actually the result of an integration of different logics of a paradigmatic and syntagmatic type. To do this we must return to Ferdinand de Saussure who identified within the language the presence of these two main axes.

Paradigmatic and Syntagmatic Systems The first main axis, the paradigmatic one, is characterized by two fundamental aspects. The first is the fact that the relations between the members of a speech take place in absentia. The second is that they are guided by a criterion of substitutability. A word can be substituted with another word that has the same meaning or performs the same function or shares with it some other characteristic (morphological, sound, etc.): it can also be said that each word can be substituted with another similar one. The seat of these coordinations is in the brain, “they are part of that inner treasure that constitutes the language” (de Saussure 1916). In the second load-bearing axis, the syntagmatic axis: Words acquire relations based on the linear nature of language because they are chained together. This rules out the possibility of pronouncing two elements simultaneously (see p. 70). The elements are arranged in sequence on the chain of speaking. Combinations supported by linearity are syntagmas. The syntagma is always composed of two or more consecutive units (e.g., French re-lire, re-read; contre tous, against everyone; la vie humaine, human life; Dieu est bon, God is good; s’il fait beau temps, nous sortirons, if the weather is nice, we’ll go out, etc.). In the syntagma a term acquires its value only because it stands in opposition to everything that precedes or follows it, or to both (de Saussure 1959, 123). The syntagmatic axis is based on two fundamental characteristics. The first is that syntagmatic relationships are relationships in praesentia, that is, the members of this report must be present in an actual series of words or phrases. The second characteristic is that these elements have a relationship of

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completion–opposition between them. Each word opposes and completes the meaning of the word that precedes and follows it. It could also be said that these relations are characterized by “part–whole” links, according to which the meaning of a syntagma depends not only on the terms that comprise it but also on the order that these terms take on in the syntagma. What de Saussure says about linguistic groupings can be applied to other forms of groupings that we will generically call cognitive groupings. Even in the case of cognitive groupings, it is possible to distinguish groupings on a paradigmatic basis and groupings on a syntagmatic basis. Studies on the development of concepts have highlighted different ways in which the human being comes to classify abstract objects or entities. Some of these criteria are paradigmatic in nature or based on similarity. In the developmental field, the criterion of similarity can be seen in chain unions (objects or figures are joined according to color, shape, etc.), or in superordering, according to which objects have constant values (objects all red, or all large) and are included in a superordered group. On the basis of the criterion of similarity and superordering, categories can be formed. The paradigmatic axis of knowledge has different uses. The categories cover different functions such as mental economy (or simplification of reality), pragmatic utility (they can be built on the basis of practical intentions), social relevance (importance attributed to them in the community), social solidarity (sharing the same ideas strengthens the bond), personal needs (they reflect our orientation toward the world), and risk regulation. That is what we have seen about probability, and that is when we ask ourselves “what chance do I have of being wrong in saying that guy is reliable and what chance do I have in saying that he isn’t?” (Amsterdam and Bruner 2000). This is supposed to be because the categories are organized into hierarchies that make deductive reasoning possible. In the logic of the classes, given a set composed of elements A, B, C, you can find a group D that contains them: A + B + C = D. Subsequently, given this group D, and elements A and B, you can get element C:

D − ( A + B) = C



Syntagmatic groupings are vast groups of elements that are heterogeneous but linked by the fact that they form a whole. Classification modes of this type have been highlighted, usually alongside those of the paradigmatic type, by studies on the development of children’s thought. Vygotsky (1934) described classification modes “by complexes” (associative, collection, chain), characterized by a type of internal organization that resembles the kinship link. Piaget (Piaget and Inhelder 1967) has highlighted in children of 4 or 5 years of age the use of criteria of the figurative type, through which objects are put together to form figures, of the functional type, when two objects or figures are associated because they serve each other (such as hat and head), or even of the narrative type, when objects such as men, houses, and animals were put together to build a story. Bruner et  al. (1966) spoke of

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thematic or narrative groupings and for overall structures similar to the Vygotsky complexes. In the syntagmatic groupings of a narrative type, the child constructs a story that reconnects the chosen objects. Referring to Smorti (1994) a more widespread examination in this regard, what I would like to show now is that paradigmatic and syntagmatic, categories and stories are not conceivable without each other, because in language, as in thought, the paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes act in a way that is so joined and integrated as to constitute a single system. There are at least three orders of reflection that authorize the conception of a single system of thought in which the syntagmatic and paradigmatic axes are inextricably linked: 1. Meanwhile there are the developmental studies that have shown that the categories understood as taxa (paradigmatic axis) are also formed from the script (syntagmatic axis). Taking the example of the script of the “breakfast in the morning,” the child learns that first he is put on the high chair, then his bib is put on, then he drinks juice and eats biscuits, then the bib is taken off, and finally he is brought down from the high chair. Once he learns this succession he learns to extract from this script particular elements (such as biscuits or fruit juice), which can be replaced by others (e.g., yoghurt or tea). This substitutability allows the paradigmatic axis that leads to the construction of categories to be inserted into the syntagmatic axis of succession. In fact, if some elements can be replaced with other absent elements, these are considered similar because they perform the same function. That is how categories such as food or drink are formed (and mom can ask her baby: what do you want to eat? What do you want to drink? Juice or tea? Cookies or yogurt?). Categories, in human thought, are never completely emancipated from their origin, from the contexts of life from which they come and the typical situations to which they remain bound. The categories—says Bruner—are like flowers that we pick from the garden of narratives, because they derive from them. But, once caught by this garden, the categories do not lose their original scent. In other words, it is as if the concept of a glass still holds within itself something of that “glass of water” given by the mother before falling asleep. 2. There are structures that are both paradigmatic and syntagmatic. For example, in Mayan poetry “disfrasismo” are parallel lexical structures (Craveri 2006). These can be synonymic or antithetical. Synonymic dysphrasism (which we could call paradigmatic) expresses a nuance resulting from the juxtaposition of two similar but slightly different words such as “path and journey,” “see and look.” The two similar concepts in synonymic disfrasismo are not substitutable for each other because one adds nuances that the other does not have, which are necessary to suggest a third concept. In the ancient Greek world we talked about καλòϛ κἀγαθόϛ as beautiful and good, but καλòϛ κἀγαθόϛ was not only beautiful and good but represented something more, a sort of idea of perfection.

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Antithetical dysphrasism (which we might call syntagmatic) connects different or opposing concepts such as “mountain and valley” or “man and woman.” Antithetical disfrasismo are the most effective tool in Mayan poetry because their tension determines the meaning of a third member as landscape (in the case of mountain–valley) or son (in the case of man–woman). The antithetical dysphrasisms are composed of two concepts linked together by a relationship of opposition–continuity and illustrate well a syntagmatic composition. The two types of disfrasismo use two concepts (similar or dissimilar) to express a third. However, we could observe that the distance between similarity and diversity is very labile, because “man and woman” are still people and “valley and mountain” are elements of a landscape. Thus, dysphrasisms are an example of the way in which paradigmatic and syntagmatic axes can be connected: the similarity between concepts can give rise to a diversity and diversity to a similarity. In short, the more we examine the differences between paradigmatic and syntagmatic within the world of concepts, the more we realize that this distinction is more of a degree than a quality. And that brings us to our third point. 3. The notion of Rosch’s prototype (1983), of Lakoff’s idealized cognitive model (1987), the concept of “structure with gradations” (Barsalou 1987) are examples of the way in which human beings use categories. These concepts show that the members of a category are not as equivalent as the attributes themselves, but vary to the extent that they are a good or typical example of their category. “Cow” is an example of the category “mammals” better than “whale,” etc. Members of a category group around a central trend that takes on the value of a prototype. If that is the case, for the prototype categories it is not possible to speak properly of reports of inclusion of one category in another because inclusion presupposes a relationship between classes. For example, from the point of view of species ordering, animals are included among themselves in increasingly large classes (for example: order, family, genus, species) and each type of animal is considered a class whose members are equivalent to each other. However, from the point of view of my mental representation, there will be animals that are “more animals than others.” This has made some people talk about metonymic models (Lakoff 1987). In these cases the rule that if A + B = C then C − B = A and A