Stories are products of the human mind, but they are also structures that allow the mind to perceive the world, make sense of experience, and share meanings. Narratives are powerful tools by which we structure knowledge, form identity, and understand others. They structure information on agency, subjectivity, and temporality, allowing cognitive and affective engagement with other minds, their beliefs, affects, and motivations. Engaging with stories enables entering other worlds, either suspending immediate experience or extending its affordances into the storyworld.

While narrative thinking is a cognitive capacity, the stories we live and feel by are strongly edited by culture, situated, and framed by history. Historical thinking is narratively structured and cultural models influence how agency, causality, change, and temporality are represented and transmitted.

Narratives are foundational for generating a sense of self and establishing individual identity, and for ensuring group cohesion, grounded on collective memory and foundational myths. Cultural practices of communication and mediation, informed by changing technological possibilities, allow for new formats and genres. Nonetheless, narrative prevails as a cognitive and cultural constant, as both a strategy to make sense of the world and experience, and a structuring foundation of cultural life.

Building on the previous editions of the Cognitive Futures in the Arts and Humanities network and conference series, Stories in Mind aims to bring together researchers in the fields of cognitive sciences, philosophy, literary studies, linguistics, narratology, cultural studies, performance studies, media studies and beyond.