Double-Scope Stories

Mark Turner
Review by Vishakha Khajuria

Cognitive Literary Criticism engages contemporary psychology and neuroscience of reading,

Cognitively modern human beings have a remarkable, species-defining ability to pluck forbidden
mental fruit- that is to activate two conflicting mental structures (such as snake and person) and
to blend them creatively into a new mental structure (such as a talking snake with evil designs).

Turner takes the help of various examples in this essay. He starts by explaining how we use
cognition to conjure up mental stories that run counter to the story we inhabit. At first, he
presents examples from our daily life. For instance, if someone is flying from San Francisco to
Washington DC., his/her attention should be on that travel story happening in the present, the
seats, the bag, etc. but instead he/she is thinking about surfing on the Windsea beach. This
association between what someone is doing and what they are thinking acts as a mental escape.
Turner puts up a question, “How can we fire up incompatible mental patterns simultaneously?”
The question is unanswered as thinkers have not been able to point at a reason. There is a similar
phenomenon in which we activate our ‘imaginary story’- it is called “dreaming”. We make sure
that we are safely tucked in so that ignoring the present story is less scary. Other animals like
cats or dogs also show the same stages of cognition in the form of the REM- rapid eye
movements during sleep, moving their legs while probably dreaming of running, and so on.

How does blending happen? Our conceptualization draws from its environment and the patterns
of the memory. Conceptualization plays a supporting role while memory guides and has an upper
hand. Turner gives ‘taxonomy of scientific puzzles’ that explain how blending occurs:

- We can make sense of a story in the immediate environment with the support of memory.
- Compressing two different but compatible stories that are both running in the immediate
environment. Assign them a single conceptual frame.
- We can dream of an imaginary story during sleep when our sensory attention to the
present story is dampened. 
- We can activate a memory while awake even if it doesn’t make sense to the present story.
- We can activate an imaginary story while awake even if it doesn’t make sense to the
present story.
- We can blend a story into the immediate environment with a remembered or an
imaginary story.
 - We can activate and blend two stories both of which are supplied by memory or
imagination, even if neither of them tuned to the present story.

In his essay to show how cognition is a basic form of human function Turner mentions an
instance where his son compares the family to chickens demonstrating that if they are all
chickens, how long will each one of them live. At the end of the imaginative story, his son
declares, ‘We are lucky we are not chickens’. Now in this We-Are-Chicken analogy what Turner
wants to point out is that cognition works from a very young age. Children are often seen making
connections that are uncommon using their power of cognition. Hence cognition is the ‘most
basic’ form of working of the human mind. Children often pluck the ‘forbidden fruit’ of
cognition. We can observe such things in our environment when children imagine hosting
pretend tea parties. They can make up an entire conversation without any help. Such
manifestations are called Double-Scope stories, where the human mind can run two parallel
stories in their mind and blend them to form a third. 

In narratives, we often see that two different and unrelated topics are often combined to form a
third one. How is a person able to do that? This complex phenomenon is all because of the
complex cognitive capacity of the mind. He provides us with the standard process of this
complex blending:

- Mapping between elements of the two stories: Here the mind finds connections
between the two stories. It explores the elements like space, identity, role, etc.
- Selective Projection: Here the person involved in the process of cognitive formation
selects the parts of the two stories that match their perception. 
- Emergent Structures: This is the final product of the blended story formed via
composition, completion, and elaboration.

This is best explained with the help of an example of the story Phedre by Racine. In this work,
the character of Phaedra is performing the act of blending. She uses the legend of Theseus and
Minotaur. To express the love she has for Hippolytus, she uses the story where Ariadne, her
sister, saved Theseus by helping him through the maze in the Labyrinth. She imagines herself in
place of Ariadne and Hippolytus in place of Theseus and says, “It’s me who would have helped
you solve the maze….” According to Turner:

Phaedra does something that is at once highly imaginative and utterly routine for human beings:
she blends two analogical people, Hippolytus and Theseus, from the two separate stories. This
launches a new, third, blended story.

Humans have the ability of ‘double scope imagination’. When someone does something wrong,
we conceive a second imaginative story of what we consider ‘just punishment’. The first story of
the event is real while the second imaginative story of the punishment when blended to form a
third thus offers a story where the offender becomes worthy of punishment. Such manifestations
are called Double-Scope stories. Turner activates a different network like the crucifixion of an
innocent man. His crucifixion according to the logic of blending is just because it is a form of
compensation for the sins of humanity. The two blended stories here are the story of ‘Jesus the
carpenter’ and the other is of the humanity that sins. 
Another example presented by Turner is the analysis of the work ‘Dream of the Rood’. In this
work, the rood or the cross, which in itself is a blend, appears in the dream of a person who is
implied to be the sinner. The blending of the cross or rood is itself is the ‘minimal personification
blend’ as the rood is speaking like a person and narrating its experience. In ‘The Dream of the
Rood’, the communication that the cross and the sinner have goes beyond the concept of
common understanding. 

Here the reader becomes the audience for the sinner who relates his story and so indirectly the
audience for the cross, which relates its story.

The next blend is of the cross and Christ as the cross is the instrument of the crucifixion. The
story of the manufacture of the cross from a tree and then its formation as the instrument is
blended with the story of Christ. The cross suffered too like Christ as it too got penetrated with
the same nails that went through Christ. It also felt sinful for the role played in the crucifixion
but was redeemed because it helped in the unsinning of the human race. Therefore the sinner is
told that he would be redeemed in the same way if he wears a cross. The rood is also blended
with the Thane as it performs its duty to the lord by playing the part as the instrument and the
world being redeemed. This text also teaches the reader to be a good Thane by professing to
follow the ideal qualities of the Thane. According to Turner:

The story of Phaedre belongs to elite literature, both Greek and French, and the story of Christ
the Redeemer belongs to successful religion. The story of The Dream of the Rood belongs to
both.  

A picture book named “The Runaway Bunny” is also an excellent example presented by Turner.
In the book, there is a talking bunny which in itself is a blend. He is talking to his mother and
telling her that he will run away from home. But his mother replies that she will follow him. To
this, he replies that he would become a Trout fish if she follows him. The mother tells him that if
he becomes a fish then she will become a fisherman. In the entire story, the bunny jumps from
one blend to another and so does his mother. Observing this kind of blending in a picture book
for children, Turner says that, “it is worth taking a moment to marvel at the fact that a
complicated string of fantastic blended double-scope stories end up being profoundly persuasive
and reassuring for the real story which the real child actually inhabits.”  

Turner talks about two additional mental abilities like:

- Activate two or more conflicting stories simultaneously.

The essay suggests that we are at the doorstep of a period of research that requires us to observe
and dip into the principles of double scope blending. This new field is a combined effort from all
fields like cognitive neuroscientists, developmental psychologists, evolutionary biologists, and
scholars of story. It helps in broadening our understanding. The ability to pluck the ‘forbidden
fruit’ is natural to children. They often pluck it and form blended stories. We as adults have just
started to explore and explain it.