Why reading matters | Rita Carter | TEDxCluj

Summary

The speaker argues that reading fiction enhances imagination, memory, and personal relationships, making individuals more empathetic. Emphasizing the importance of narrative reading, they cite a 2013 study by psychologists showing that it improves 'Theory of Mind'. The speaker presents new evidence from brain sciences, suggesting that reading fiction activates parts of the brain as if the reader is experiencing the events, leading to increased sensitivity to others' feelings and a more empathetic society.

Takeaways

• 📚 Reading, especially fiction, can enhance imagination, memory, personal relationships, and overall character without any cost.
• 🎭 The speaker emphasizes the importance of reading narratives that allow you to experience emotions, thoughts, and actions from a character's perspective.
• 🧠 New evidence from brain sciences supports the idea that reading fiction has profound effects on the brain, making it a vital form of reading.
• 🔍 A 2013 study by Kidd and Castano demonstrated that reading fiction can improve 'Theory of Mind', the ability to understand others' mental states.
• 🤔 The speaker recounts personal experiences with a reading group that included individuals with mental health issues, showing the transformative power of fiction on their lives.
• 🧬 The brain is made up of neurons forming pathways for thoughts, emotions, and feelings, with some pathways being innate and others learned, like reading.
• 💡 Speaking is a natural, genetically wired ability, whereas reading requires the creation of new, individual pathways in the brain.
• 🔑 The act of reading fiction activates the same parts of the brain that would be active if the reader were experiencing the events themselves, albeit to a lesser extent.
• 🧠 Research from Emory University shows that reading fiction can physically change the brain's structure, increasing the density of neural connections.
• 🏋️‍♂️ The brain, like a muscle, benefits from a workout, and reading fiction provides an excellent mental exercise that can improve empathy and societal well-being.
• 🌟 The speaker concludes that reading fiction is not only beneficial for individuals but also for society at large, fostering a more empathetic community.

Q & A

What is the main claim presented by the speaker about reading fiction?

The speaker claims that reading fiction can make individuals more imaginative, improve memory, enhance personal relationships, and make them better people, with evidence suggesting it's more important than any other form of reading.

What is the 'Theory of Mind' mentioned in the script, and how is it related to reading fiction?

The 'Theory of Mind' is the intuitive ability to understand others' thoughts and feelings based on their expressions and actions. Reading fiction is said to enhance this ability by allowing readers to experience characters' emotions and perspectives.

What experiment was conducted by David Kidd and Emanuele Castano in 2013, and what was its purpose?

David Kidd and Emanuele Castano conducted experiments in 2013 where participants read passages from different types of books and then judged photographs of people with strong facial expressions. The purpose was to test the impact of reading on 'Theory of Mind' and empathy.

How does the speaker describe the impact of reading fiction on a reading group for people with mental issues?

The speaker describes the impact as transformative, noting that reading fiction changed the lives of the participants, helping them to empathize and understand different perspectives, and in one case, it saved a life.

What is the difference between the brain pathways for speaking and reading as described in the script?

Speaking pathways are innate and wired into us from birth, making it a natural ability. Reading, however, is not innate and requires learning and the creation of new, individual pathways in the brain.

How does the brain process abstract symbols when reading, according to the script?

When reading, the brain has to create new connections across many different parts, forming complex networks. This process involves more parts of the brain and is described as a more holistic experience.

What does the speaker suggest about the brain's activity when reading about someone experiencing an emotion or action?

The speaker suggests that the same parts of the brain that would be active if the reader were experiencing the emotion or action themselves become active, albeit to a lesser extent.

What study from Emory University is referenced, and what did it find?

The study from Emory University had students read a novel with in-depth character perspectives over five nights. Brain scans before and after reading showed that the connections in the brain got thicker and denser, indicating a 'workout' for the brain.

How does the speaker conclude the benefits of reading fiction for both individuals and society?

The speaker concludes that reading fiction is a beneficial workout for the brain, enhancing empathy and understanding of others' perspectives. This, in turn, contributes to a more empathetic society.

What is the significance of the brain scans showing similar activity when reading about actions and actually performing them?

The similarity in brain scans signifies that reading about actions can activate the same neural pathways as actually performing those actions, suggesting that reading can provide a form of mental simulation of experiences.

What is the speaker's final message about the importance of reading fiction?

The speaker's final message is that reading fiction is crucial for both individual cognitive development and societal empathy, emphasizing that the brain needs exercise just as much as the body does.

Outlines

00:00

📚 The Power of Fiction Reading

The speaker introduces the topic by highlighting the benefits of reading fiction, which include enhancing imagination, memory, personal relationships, and overall character. Contrary to common belief, fiction reading is not merely a leisure activity but is supported by evidence from brain sciences as a crucial form of reading. The speaker references a 2013 study by Kidd and Castano, which demonstrates that reading fiction improves 'Theory of Mind', the ability to understand others' perspectives, which is vital for social interaction and imagination. The speaker also shares a personal anecdote about a reading group for individuals with mental health issues, illustrating the profound impact fiction reading can have on personal lives.

05:01

🧠 How Reading Affects the Brain

This paragraph delves into the neurological aspects of reading, contrasting the innate ability of speech with the learned skill of reading. The speaker explains that while speech pathways are genetically predisposed, reading requires the creation of new neural pathways. The brain engages in more complex activity when reading, activating a widespread network of areas. The speaker also discusses how reading about actions or emotions can activate the same parts of the brain as if the reader were experiencing those actions or emotions themselves, suggesting that reading can lead to a deeper and more personal understanding of the narrative.

10:02

🏋️‍♂️ The Brain-Boosting Benefits of Fiction

The final paragraph presents new findings from Emory University, which show that reading fiction can lead to measurable changes in the brain's connectivity. The study involved students reading 'Pompeii' by Robert Harris, and the brain scans revealed that the connections between brain areas became thicker and denser over the course of the reading period. The speaker concludes by emphasizing the importance of mental exercise through reading fiction, likening it to a workout for the brain. Reading not only benefits the individual by enhancing empathy and understanding but also contributes to a more empathetic society.

Keywords

💡Imagination

Imagination refers to the ability to form mental images or concepts of things that are not present or have never been experienced. In the video, the speaker suggests that reading fiction can enhance one's imagination by allowing readers to visualize and experience the world from different perspectives, as seen in the readers' group discussion on 'Wuthering Heights'.

💡Memory

Memory is the faculty by which the mind stores and retrieves information. The script implies that reading could improve memory, possibly by engaging in the retention of narratives and character details, which is a cognitive exercise that may strengthen memory recall.

💡Personal Relationships

Personal relationships refer to the connections individuals have with one another. The video posits that reading can improve these relationships by fostering empathy and understanding of others' emotions and perspectives, as demonstrated by the reading group's empathetic engagement with the characters in 'Wuthering Heights'.

💡Fiction

Fiction denotes any narrative or story that is a product of imagination and not based on real events. The speaker emphasizes the importance of fiction reading for its capacity to transport readers into the minds of characters, thereby enhancing empathy and understanding, as opposed to nonfiction which may not delve as deeply into character perspectives.

💡Narratives

Narratives are stories or accounts of events or experiences. The video highlights narratives as a form of reading that can provide insights into characters' emotions and actions, which is crucial for developing a more profound connection with the material and enhancing one's imaginative and empathetic abilities.

💡Theory of Mind

Theory of Mind is the ability to attribute mental states to oneself and others and to understand that others have thoughts, feelings, and motives that may differ from one's own. The script discusses this concept as a skill that can be honed through reading fiction, enabling readers to better understand and predict others' behavior, as illustrated by the reading group's analysis of characters' motivations.

💡Empathy

Empathy is the capacity to understand and share the feelings of others. The video suggests that reading fiction can increase empathetic abilities by allowing readers to experience the emotional states of characters, which is evident in the reading group members' discussion where they express understanding and even identification with the characters' feelings.

💡Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity, also known as brain plasticity, is the brain's ability to change and adapt as a result of experience. The script introduces the concept to explain how reading can physically alter the brain's structure by creating new neural pathways, as shown by the Emory University study where reading led to increased connectivity in various brain regions.

💡Brain Pathways

Brain pathways refer to the neural connections that facilitate the transmission of information in the brain. The video explains that reading, unlike speaking, requires the creation of new pathways as it is a learned skill, not innate. These pathways are crucial for understanding and internalizing the narratives and emotions described in the text.

💡Character Perspective

Character perspective is the point of view from which a story is told through a character's thoughts, feelings, and experiences. The script emphasizes the importance of reading from character perspectives for developing empathy and understanding, as it allows readers to step into the shoes of the characters and experience the story from their viewpoint, as seen in the reading group's deep engagement with 'Wuthering Heights'.

💡Mental Health

Mental health refers to the state of an individual's psychological and emotional well-being. The video script mentions a reading group for people with mental health issues, suggesting that reading fiction can have therapeutic effects and contribute positively to mental health by providing an escape, a means of self-reflection, and a way to explore and understand emotions.

Highlights

Reading fiction can enhance imagination, memory, personal relationships, and overall personality.

Fiction reading is often dismissed as pleasurable at best or a waste of time at worst.

New evidence from brain sciences supports the benefits of fiction reading.

2013 experiments by Kidd and Castano showed reading fiction improves 'Theory of Mind'.

'Theory of Mind' is the ability to understand others' perspectives and emotions.

Reading fiction allows readers to experience characters' emotions and perspectives.

Lack of 'Theory of Mind' can severely impact social life and limit imagination.

A reading group for individuals with mental health issues experienced positive changes through fiction reading.

Reading fiction can be life-changing and even life-saving.

The brain creates new pathways when learning to read, unlike speech which is innate.

Reading involves complex networks across the brain, unlike the more straightforward speech pathways.

Reading activates the same brain areas as actually experiencing the events described.

Emotional and cognitive responses in the reader's brain mirror those of the characters in the story.

Researchers from Emory University found that reading fiction strengthens neural connections.

Reading can provide a mental workout, enhancing the brain's structure and function.

Reading fiction promotes empathy and understanding in society.

The brain, like a muscle, benefits from the workout provided by reading and considering different perspectives.

Transcripts

Translator: Rosa Baranda Reviewer: Peter van de Ven

If I came and told you there is this one thing you could all do

which would make you more imaginative, make your memory better,

probably improve your personal relationships,

and make you a nicer person,

you would probably be very skeptical.

And even more so if I said it costs nothing

and probably everybody in this room can already do it.

Now, you will probably have guessed by now

that I'm talking about reading -

there's a clue in the title.

But I'm not talking about the sort of reading

that we all know is incredibly important;

that is, the sort of reading we do for education,

the sort of reading we do for administration,

the sort of reading which we have to do nowadays just to get through life.

I'm talking rather about fiction, stories, narratives -

the sort of reading where you are reading things from inside another person's head,

where it takes you right inside

the character's emotions and feelings and actions

so you are seeing it from their perspective.

That's the sort of reading which is at best thought of as pleasurable

and at worst quite often as a waste of time.

I mean, I remember my mother telling me

that when she was a child she was crazy about books

but that her father once ripped a novel out of her hands,

saying that 'If you have to read, at least read something useful.'

What I want to tell you today

is that, surprisingly, fiction is very useful indeed,

in ways that we probably never previously suspected;

in fact, it's more important, probably, than any other form of reading.

And I have some new evidence,

which comes rather surprisingly out of the brain sciences,

to support that, which I'll come to.

First of all, some not-so-new evidence:

in 2013 there was a series of experiments

done by two New York psychologists, David Kidd and Emanuele Castano.

What they did was take people and ask them to read

quite short passages from various types of books.

Some of them were nonfiction books, explanatory or learning books,

and some of them where thrillers, plots,

where you read about the events happening in a story

but not very much about the people; you weren't inside their heads.

And the third sort

was the sort of fiction I am talking about,

which is when you were reading things from the perspective of the characters.

After that, the researchers got the people to look at a series of photographs

of people with very strong facial expressions of one sort or another,

and they were asked to judge from the expressions alone

what they thought was going on inside those people's heads.

This is actually quite a standard test

for something that we call 'Theory of Mind',

which is a rather bad phrase, I think,

for a faculty which we're all, I hope, pretty familiar with;

we've all got it to some extent or another.

And that is the intuitive ability

to see from the way a person is moving or expressing themselves

what is going on in their head.

It allows us to, just at least for a moment,

to step outside our own heads

and see the world for a bit from other people's point of view.

And the same faculty, by extension,

opens up whole worlds to us

because it allows us to imagine what it's like

to be somewhere else, doing something else,

seeing it in a different way.

And thus people who don't have it are quite severely handicapped,

particularly in social life -

they find relationships very difficult -

and more than that, they are limited by a very limited imagination.

Because without that ability to step outside yourself,

it's difficult to imagine anything, really.

Now, you don't actually have to look at academic papers to see this effect.

We're all quite familiar with it.

I want to tell you about a particular -

A few years ago, I went to a reading group

which was for people with various types of mental issues.

A lot of them had had severe depression or anxiety,

and they had come together to start a reading group.

And I joined several months in,

when it was already having effect.

The particular meeting I went to they were reading 'Wuthering Heights',

the English novel,

and I just got to this bit where Kathy, the heroine,

had to decide between marrying either boring old Linton

or this wildly exciting tempestuous chap, Heathcliff.

So I just want you to see what they had to say.

- Every Linton on the face of the earth might melt into nothing

before I could consent to forsake Heathcliff.

- Stop there, Faye.

Is this sort of state she's in something you'd aspire to?

Would you like to be feeling what Katherine's feeling?

- Definitely!

- I want to feel it all the time, and I felt like that, you know,

happy nearly all the time, and it can last for weeks, months.

- It's a beautiful idea: one moment she's like 'I am Heathcliff',

and then you get the sense

that it could be very, you know, dangerous as well.

- She's marrying someone under false pretenses.

- I could imagine it then from Linton's point of view.

Imagine marrying Katherine

but then knowing she's in love with somebody else.

And he will, he will find out.

- I think deep down she should be with Heathcliff.

- I think in one way she's sexually attracted to him, and the passion.

- Yeah. - Yes.

- And I think she should go for it.

(Laughter)

It did seem to me as I watched and listened to those people

that this quite simple act of reading fiction had really changed their lives;

and in fact, in one case it actually saved a life.

I know that -

as you will probably see in the end, I'll come to it.

Now, the question that occurred to me was,

What on Earth is happening in people's brains

to have this rather profound effect, this pastime?

So I just want to go a little bit over what is happening in the brain.

You probably know that our brains are made up of neurons, electrical cells,

and that they join together to form pathways,

which have electricity zapping back and forth endlessly,

and that electricity ebb and flow

is our thoughts, our emotions, and our feelings.

Some of these pathways are pretty similar in all of us

because they're actually built into our genes.

Up here, on the left here, they're the pathways we all have

which take light from the eyes to the visual cortex,

so the back of our head.

On the other side of the frame,

you have got the connections between the two hemispheres of the brain

so that each side quite literally knows what the other is doing.

Now, I just want to show you quickly

the difference between speaking and reading

because they are very different.

Speaking is something that, again, is in our genes,

we already have those pathways wired into us when we are born.

All you have to do is put a baby around people who are talking

and sooner or later they will start to do it too, it's natural.

But reading is not.

You could put a baby in a library, surrounded by books,

from the day it's born,

and it would never start spontaneously reading.

It has to be taught how to do it.

And this is the reason speech has been with us

for at least 100,000 years,

quite time for natural selection to actually get it wired into our brains.

But reading probably only started about 5,000 years ago,

and until about 100 years ago, most people didn't do it at all.

So rather than being able to use those pre-wired,

intuitive, if you like, pathways,

every time, every person who learns to read has to do it afresh.

And that means making new pathways, individual pathways,

the sort that individuals do make all through their life.

Every time they have an experience will lay down a memory or a new habit;

they create individual pathways, on top of the basic blueprint.

And that's what we have to do when we read.

Quickly, when you look at a brain that's speaking,

it's fairly straight forward: if you see a dog, say.

Information zooms to the back of the head, visual cortex,

then sort of chunks forward.

As it chunks forward, it picks up memories of what it's looking at

until by the time it gets to that blue area,

which is the first of the major language areas,

it is then able to put a word to it.

And then it gets jogged on again to that next red area, Broca's,

and that's when we remember how to say it.

Quite literally, the motor area, which is that green stripe,

is then instructed to send instructions to our lips and our tongues

to actually make the word.

That's how speaking works.

And, as I say, it's natural, those pathways are there already.

But reading is a very different kettle of fish.

When we see abstract symbols written down, our brain has to do far more work.

It actually has to, when we are learning to read,

we have to create all those new connections

in many, many different parts of the brain.

You can see the red bits, or the lit-up bits.

You can see these aren't clear, easy, one-trap pathways.

These are really complicated networks

that are being formed in the brain when we read.

So your brain is doing a lot more work, it's connecting far more parts.

If you like, it's a more holistic experience.

It forces you to use parts of the brain that aren't usually used.

More than that, the reason, or one reason why it's so widespread,

is that when we read things about somebody doing something,

run for their life or they're screaming or they're frightened,

what happens in the brain of the reader is that those same bits of the brain

that would be active if they were doing it themselves,

become active.

Admittedly not quite to the same extent, or we'd act out everything we read,

and we can usually inhibit them enough not to do that,

but basically -

These are brain scans of people,

you can see from the color chart below,

they're reading.

The actual movement produces the pattern on your left,

and when you're reading it,

what is happening in your brain is the pattern on the right.

And as you see, they are very similar, with the only difference being

that when you're reading about things, it's not quite as intense.

If it carried on in intensity, you would act it out.

Because the important thing about reading

is that you're not just learning what's going on in that person's head.

You, too, to a certain extent are experiencing it.

And there's a very big difference there.

It's the same with everything.

With pain -

if watch or read about somebody in pain,

the same bits of the brain that would be active if you were feeling the pain

will become active as well.

And some people feel this so much

that they actually do feel and report the pain.

Same with anger, same with any emotion,

same even with quite complicated intellectual things,

like judgments, moral judgments, and so on.

Now, this is the new information which has really only come out this year.

Some researchers from Emory University in the States

decided to see if they could actually see inside the brain what was going on.

We know already from the earlier work

that people become at least temporarily more sensitive to other people's feelings

once they've read a book or been reading some fiction.

And this researchers set out to see

if this was something that could actually be seen

inside of the brain, physically.

So they had students,

lots and lots, I think it was quite a large sample,

reading a passage of a particularly engaging and exciting novel

with a lot of inside-character driven stuff.

It was actually 'Pompeii', by Robert Harris,

if you want to do the same thing yourself.

And they had the people read just 30 pages a night for five nights in a row.

And they took brain scans before the people started doing this exercise

to get a baseline

of what their brains looked like before.

Then they had them read,

and every night after they had read a passage,

they came in next morning and they had their brain scanned again.

And every day there were differences.

The differences,

this is a sort of schematic picture of where the differences where found,

the connections,

which as the week went on and they read a passage each night,

they got thicker and denser.

And they are, as you see, all over the brain,

not just in the language areas,

everywhere.

Basically, what these people seemed to be doing

was giving themselves a really good workout.

In fact, the brain scans looked more or less what you'd expect to find

if this people had lived the events that they had been reading about.

They had actually lived an experience,

and it had become part of the architecture of their brain.

So in conclusion,

I'm really giving the same message, I think, as Delia, the speaker before,

which is that your brain needs a workout as much as your body.

And reading fiction seems to be one of the best workouts you can get.

And not only is it good for you, but it's also good for society as a whole

because the brain is like a muscle:

the more you force yourself through books to take other people's perspectives,

to sympathize, to empathize with other people,

the more empathetic a society we will have.

Thank you.

(Applause)