Neural Narratives: The Cognitive Cost of Curriculum and Neural Bias Regulation in U.S. History Education

• In Event: Neuroscience, AI, and Emotion in Education: Bridging Cognitive and Social Development

Abstract

This paper presents preliminary findings from Neural Narratives, a mixed-methods study investigating how U.S. history curricula influence students’ neural and cognitive responses to race, gender, and class through visual representation. Grounded in social neuroscience and curriculum theory, the study uses surveys, IATs, and fMRI to assess how hierarchical and counter-hierarchical images engage neural systems linked to bias regulation (dACC, dlPFC), fluency (ATL), and empathy (vmPFC). Initial results suggest that canonical images are processed with greater ease and perceived as “natural,” while counter-hierarchical representations elicit dissonance and interpretive strain. These findings highlight how curricular exposure conditions cognitive efficiency for dominant narratives and raise questions about whether neural patterns of bias can be disrupted through representational change.

Author

• Tanishia Lavette Williams, Brandeis University