Context-based model of minimal counterintuitiveness

This is in contrast to the traditional (also called content-based) accounts of the MCI-effect which underscore the role played by context.

[4][5] Barrett & Nyhoff (2001) claim that this is necessary in order to explain cross-cultural success of religious concepts.

[6] The context-based model was first proposed by cognitive scientist Afzal Upal in 2005 [7] and has been subsequently elaborated in a number of publications.

In fact the context-based model predicts that since people learn, their conceptual representations change over time.

When people encounter a minimally counterintuitive concept for the first time, they are forced to make sense out of it (Upal (2005) labelled it as the postdiction process).