Why read fiction? ... well, forget escapism or relaxation, clearly the best reason is the health benefits. Yes, that's right the health benefits :) We all knew it was good for you, of course, but now science is joining the party. I'm to share some snippets from an
article that I rather enjoyed...
"... new support for the value of fiction is arriving from an unexpected quarter: neuroscience.
Brain scans are revealing what happens in our heads when we read a
detailed description, an evocative metaphor or an emotional exchange
between characters. Stories, this research is showing, stimulate the
brain and even change how we act in life.
Researchers have long known that the “classical” language regions, like
Broca’s area and Wernicke’s area, are involved in how the brain
interprets written words. What scientists have come to realize in the
last few years is that narratives activate many other parts of our
brains as well, suggesting why the experience of reading can feel so
alive. Words like “lavender,” “cinnamon” and “soap,” for example, elicit
a response not only from the language-processing areas of our brains,
but also those devoted to dealing with smells. ...
The way the brain handles metaphors has also received extensive study;
some scientists have contended that figures of speech like “a rough day”
are so familiar that they are treated simply as words and no more. ... however, a team of researchers from Emory University reported in
Brain & Language that when subjects in their laboratory read a
metaphor involving texture, the sensory cortex, responsible for
perceiving texture through touch, became active. Metaphors like “The
singer had a velvet voice” and “He had leathery hands” roused the
sensory cortex, while phrases matched for meaning, like “The singer had a
pleasing voice” and “He had strong hands,” did not.
Researchers have discovered that words describing motion also stimulate
regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas. In a study
led by the cognitive scientist Véronique Boulenger, of the Laboratory
of Language Dynamics in France, the brains of participants were scanned
as they read sentences like “John grasped the object” and “Pablo kicked
the ball.” The scans revealed activity in the motor cortex, which
coordinates the body’s movements. ...
... The brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading
about an experience and encountering it in real life; in each case, the
same neurological regions are stimulated. Keith Oatley, an emeritus
professor of cognitive psychology at the University of Toronto (and a
published novelist), has proposed that reading produces a vivid
simulation of reality, one that “runs on minds of readers just as
computer simulations run on computers.” Fiction — with its redolent
details, imaginative metaphors and attentive descriptions of people and
their actions — offers an especially rich replica. Indeed, in one
respect novels go beyond simulating reality to give readers an
experience unavailable off the page: the opportunity to enter fully into
other people’s thoughts and feelings.
The novel, of course, is an unequaled medium for the exploration of
human social and emotional life. ...
... Raymond Mar, a psychologist at York University in Canada, performed an
analysis of 86 fMRI studies, published last year in the Annual Review of
Psychology, and concluded that there was substantial overlap in the
brain networks used to understand stories and the networks used to
navigate interactions with other individuals — in particular,
interactions in which we’re trying to figure out the thoughts and
feelings of others. Scientists call this capacity of the brain to
construct a map of other people’s intentions “theory of mind.”
Narratives offer a unique opportunity to engage this capacity, as we
identify with characters’ longings and frustrations, guess at their
hidden motives and track their encounters with friends and enemies,
neighbors and lovers. ...
... These findings will affirm the experience of readers who have felt
illuminated and instructed by a novel, who have found themselves
comparing a plucky young woman to Elizabeth Bennet or a tiresome pedant
to Edward Casaubon. Reading great literature, it has long been averred,
enlarges and improves us as human beings. Brain science shows this claim
is truer than we imagined."
Read the whole article
here.
