Narrative Cognition in Mixed Reality Systems: Towards an Empirical Framework

In this paper, we propose an interdisciplinary theoretical and empirical framework to investigate the particular faculties related to human “narrative cognition”, in general, and in relation to MRT in particular. In order to contextualize our approach, we shortly review the cognitive turn in narratology, as well as state of the art in different domains that have undertaken psychophysiological studies that either characterize aspects that are relevant to narrative cognition, or which investigate mixed reality experiences. The idea is to bring together knowledge and insights from narratology, different branches of semiotics and cognitive sciences, with empirical strategies that bridge the gap between first-person phenomenological approaches and psychophysiological and behavioural methods. We propose a rationale in order to combine tools and techniques from MRT/VR/AR, interactive digital narratives and storytelling, with a suite of integrated psychophysiological methods (such as EEG, HR, GSR and eye tracking) and phenomenological-subjective approaches.