2024 Volume 31 Issue 1 Pages 110-127
Storytelling is a culturally universal phenomenon deeply intertwined with human language communication and social cognition. This paper explores the cultural evolution of stories from two perspectives: (1) their adaptive function for humans and (2) the cognitive and environmental constraints for humans transmitting and consuming stories. Drawing on empirical studies, the paper discusses how stories encapsulate valuable knowledge that aids adaptation to social and natural environments. Then, the interplay between the cognitive basis and the adaptive function of stories is discussed, especially focusing on their role in facilitating language communication. Finally, we present a hypothesis that stories have made it possible to transmit information more efficiently, and that the existence of these stories may have influenced the way humans are. We emphasize the importance of interdisciplinary research to test this hypothesis.
