This Is Your Brain on Fiction

While talking to my sister-in-law this morning, I mentioned that I haven't read a nonfiction book in quite some time. In fact, I think the last one might have been The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks, which I read over a year ago. Perhaps overly defensive of the lack of nonfiction on my recent reading lists, I rationalized that there is so much to be learned from great fiction. Of course, it's obvious that we broaden our knowledge of language and often of history and sociology through fiction, but my sister-in-law also referred me to a recent New York Times op-ed about discoveries in the field of neuroscience regarding the impact fiction and descriptive language can have on the brain and on our ability to empathize with other people.

According to this op-ed, the brain may not actually distinguish between reading about an experience and actually experiencing it because in both cases, the same neurological regions are stimulated.  According to the op-ed:

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. What’s more, this activity was concentrated in one part of the motor cortex when the movement described was arm-related and in another part when the movement concerned the leg. 

Another study found that metaphors such as "The singer had a velvet voice” or “He had leathery hands” roused the sensory cortex, while phrases with similar meanings such as “The singer had a pleasing voice” or “He had strong hands,” did not. 

This is all interesting, but what does it mean to us as readers? And how does it impact whether we like a piece of fiction or not? Or does it? I recently read Jesmyn Ward's Salvage the Bones, which takes place in the days before Hurricane Katrina, and each time I put the book down I found myself looking nervously outside, surprised to see the sun shining and no signs of a hurricane, much less a drop of rain. Did the words that Ward selected stimulate my brain to trick me into these feelings of apprehension about the weather? I now find myself wondering about those truly precious books that you can't wait to finish but that you don't want to end, was something happening to my brain while I read that made those books so much more special than the rest?      

To check out the op-ed for yourself, follow this link: Your Brain on Fiction (New York Times March 17, 2012).