At Stories Incorporated, we spend a lot of time interviewing storytellers, and—while I think my memory is generally pretty poor—I find myself having an easy time remembering the stories shared with us. We love to turn to an article that explains why the stories we hear are so memorable.

According to the article, as humans, certain parts of the brain are activated when we hear stories. The author provides this explanation:

“Why does the format of a story, where events unfold one after the other have such a profound impact on our learning? The simple answer is this: We are wired that way. A story, if broken down into the simplest form is a connection of cause and effect. And that is exactly how we think.”

We had the feeling all along that this was true, as its not too difficult to observe that everyone loves stories. But it is nice to have some scientific research that supports a pillar of our methodology.