The Science of Storytelling: Why Stories Make Us Human and How to Tell Them Better

by Will Storr

Newborns are attracted to human faces more than to any other object:

One hour from birth, begin imitating them:

By two, they’ve learned to control their social worlds by smiling:

so adept at reading people that they’re making calculations about status and character automatically, in one tenth of a second: ‘Effortless

Thinking’,

When trouble strikes, when the brain’s predictions fail, we

switch into story mode. Our narrow band of attention turns on. We become aware. And there we are, one mind primed for action in the fairytale realm of others.