Garcia-Pelegrin Elias, Wilkins Clive, Clayton Nicola S
Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
Front Psychol. 2021 Oct 22;12:755783. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.755783. eCollection 2021.
Engaging in the art of creating and telling stories is a defining behaviour of humankind. Humans have been sharing stories with each other, with and without words, since the dawn of recorded history, but the cognitive foundations of the behaviour can be traced deeper into our past. The emergence of stories can be strongly linked to Mental Time Travel (the ability to recall the past and imagine the future) and plays a key role in our ability to communicate past, present and future scenarios with other individuals, within and beyond our lifetimes. Stories are products engraved within the concept of time, constructed to elucidate the past experiences of the self, but designed with the future in mind, thus imparting lessons of such experiences to the receiver. By being privy to the experiences of others, humans can imagine themselves in a similar position to the protagonist of the story, thus mentally learning from an experience they might have never encountered other than in the mind's eye. Evolutionary Psychology investigates how the engagement in artistic endeavours by our ancestors in the Pleistocene granted them an advantage when confronted with obstacles that challenged their survival or reproductive fitness and questions whether art is an adaptation of the human mind or a spandrel of other cognitive adaptations. However, little attention has been placed on the cognitive abilities that might have been imperative for the development of art. Here, we examine the relationship between art, storytelling, Mental Time Travel and Theory of Mind (i.e., the ability to attribute mental states to others). We suggest that Mental Time Travel played a key role in the development of storytelling because through stories, humans can fundamentally transcend their present condition, by being able to imagine different times, separate realities, and place themselves and others anywhere within the time space continuum. We argue that the development of a Theory of Mind also sparked storytelling practises in humans as a method of diffusing the past experiences of the self to others whilst enabling the receiver to dissociate between the past experiences of others and their own, and to understand them as lessons for a possible future. We propose that when artistic products rely on storytelling in form and function, they ought to be considered separate from other forms of art whose appreciation capitalise on our aesthetic preferences.
参与创造和讲述故事的艺术是人类的一种决定性行为。自人类有记录的历史开始以来，人类就一直在相互分享故事，无论是否借助语言，但这种行为的认知基础可以追溯到更久远的过去。故事的出现与心理时间旅行（即回忆过去和想象未来的能力）紧密相连，并且在我们与他人交流过去、现在和未来情景的能力中起着关键作用，无论这些情景是在我们的有生之年之内还是之外。故事是铭刻在时间概念中的产物，构建出来是为了阐明自我过去的经历，但设计时也考虑到了未来，从而将这些经历的经验教训传授给接收者。通过了解他人的经历，人类可以想象自己处于与故事主人公类似的境地，从而在脑海中从一种可能从未亲身经历过、仅在想象中出现过的经历中学习。进化心理学研究我们的祖先在更新世参与艺术活动如何在面对挑战其生存或繁殖适应性的障碍时给予他们优势，以及质疑艺术是人类思维的一种适应还是其他认知适应的副产品。然而，对于艺术发展可能至关重要的认知能力却很少受到关注。在这里，我们研究艺术、讲故事、心理时间旅行和心理理论（即赋予他人心理状态的能力）之间的关系。我们认为心理时间旅行在讲故事的发展中起着关键作用，因为通过故事，人类能够从根本上超越当下的状况，能够想象不同的时间、不同的现实，并将自己和他人置于时空连续体中的任何位置。我们认为心理理论的发展也引发了人类的讲故事行为，作为一种将自我过去的经历传播给他人的方式，同时使接收者能够区分他人和自己过去的经历，并将其理解为对可能未来的经验教训。我们提出，当艺术作品在形式和功能上依赖于讲故事时，它们应该被视为与其他形式的艺术不同，其他艺术形式的欣赏依赖于我们的审美偏好。
