Brain Function "Boosted For Days After Reading a Novel" 110
cold fjord writes "The Independent reports, 'Being pulled into the world of a gripping novel can trigger actual, measurable changes in the brain that linger for at least five days after reading ... The new research, carried out at Emory University ... found that reading a good book may cause heightened connectivity in the brain and neurological changes that persist in a similar way to muscle memory. The changes were registered in the left temporal cortex, an area of the brain associated with receptivity for language, as well as the primary sensory motor region of the brain. Neurons of this region have been associated with tricking the mind into thinking it is doing something it is not, a phenomenon known as grounded cognition — for example, just thinking about running, can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of running. "The neural changes that we found associated with physical sensation and movement systems suggest that reading a novel can transport you into the body of the protagonist," said neuroscientist Professor Gregory Berns, lead author of the study. "We already knew that good stories can put you in someone else's shoes in a figurative sense. Now we're seeing that something may also be happening biologically."'"
Programming and Puzzle Solving (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Programming and Puzzle Solving (Score:4)
Being elected to government requires imagining what everybody wants, then projecting that image as convincingly as possible. It requires considerable brain power to achieve this, but comes at the expense of diminished capacity in other areas....
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... but comes at the expense of diminished capacity in other areas....
That's what the cocaine and Viagra are for.
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I have to believe that programming and puzzle solving have similar effects.
I get the same effect from reading a good datasheet.
(The plots are usually quite linear though so they won't be to everybody's taste...)
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Mmmmmm, dirty non-linear plots. Who's a nasty little exponential function...
How about video games? (Score:2)
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Or dropping acid?
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I think work sinilar to this has already started/been done. Except they were studying the effects of dreaming about activities. I saw something on pbs about it. Supposedly there was a game or several games, a group played them while another group read about playing them. In both groups, above average scores were achived when played again if the participant reported dreaming about playing the games. Their brain scans showed changs jn the brain too.
Perhaps it has to engage the imagination to make the changes.
Re:How about video games? (Score:4, Informative)
so in other words, using your brain for any creative activity, even if internal-only, is good exercise for your brain.
Playing a computer game where you mindlessly click things does not achieve the same result.
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I would expect that there would be a similar situational optimization, but that it would vary by the type of game being played. Puzzle games would improve lateral thinking, long-winded RPGs would have effects most similar to the observed from novels, twitch-shooters would improve insult vocabulary, etc.
However, I need $850,000 funding for this 4 year, small sample research project, so I can get enough information to justify a larger research project.
Why do you want a MacPro to do gaming research?
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Dunno. Researchers never left the University, and the gamers never left their basements...
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Boosted For Days After... (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, my brain is boosted for days after writing a neat piece of code.
Re:Boosted For Days After... (Score:5, Interesting)
The brain must be boosted after writing neat code. Because months or years later I often forget the slick solution I came up with, and I'm totally confused when I look at the code again. Then the little light comes on when I figure out what I did and I think "Gee, I was pretty clever!"
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If someone other than you is going to have to maintain it one day, then yes, yes it does. In a professional environment, the answer is always yes.
Just because I can figure out what a piece of code is doing doesn't mean I'll know why that was the chosen implementation. No comments means I and anyone else who has to look at it have to waste time figuring out if the person had a good reason for a certain approach or they just didn't know what they were doing.
Code tells the what. Comments tell the why. Both are
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Before you can tell why, you have to know why...
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Before you can tell why, you have to know why...
Knowing Why is often not that important. Why something was done in a particular way (or done at all) may have (usually has) more to do with who wrote the code, their particular proclivities, or prior experience, (or, just as often, the lack thereof).
Programmer's razor: Never attribute to genius what is adequately explained by befuddled hacking about until something works. The more programmers that have touched the code, the more likely this is to be true.
My own rule of thumb is when encountering non-tran
Comments boost or degrade job security? (Score:1)
Re:Boosted For Days After... (Score:5, Funny)
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"Debugging is twice as hard as writing the code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it." --Brian Kernighan
Re:Boosted For Days After... (Score:4, Interesting)
The brain must be boosted after writing neat code. Because months or years later I often forget the slick solution I came up with, and I'm totally confused when I look at the code again. Then the little light comes on when I figure out what I did and I think "Gee, I was pretty clever!"
I've found that my brain is boosted (often for up to as long as two weeks) after skiing or a long bike ride. I often find the solution to a problem soon after rigorous physical activity. It's also interesting to learn that physical activity aids cognitive health.
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Maybe the real cause for your brain's increased connectivity was studying the fine manual.
Cumulative? (Score:5, Informative)
Also, this study was done on students. At university (or college, for our american viewers). And didn't eliminate free time or stress relief as possible factors. Also, it was done in the USA, which doesn't have the most homogenous distribution of literacy (or even a consistent measure for literacy).
I'm not saying it's bad science, I'm just saying there's another article about junk science on slashdot
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That is actually what I miss the most from the school days - enough free time to be able to read a different novel every day.
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That's one reason I'm really happy that I'm retiring in two months, more time to read, but more importantly more time to write. It took me four years to do Nobots [mcgrewbooks.com] simply because I had to waste my days chasing dollars.
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I'm not saying it's bad science, I'm just saying there's another article about junk science on slashdo
Or is it that you just didn't ready any of the study [liebertpub.com]?
Re:Cumulative? (Score:4, Interesting)
Totally anecdotal, but when I get the bug to read a book and really get into it, it sort of reactivates my my imagination. I start writing a few more random things and will pull out a pencil and doodle in my 'design' book, or I just have much more clearly defined thoughts about stories to write or things to make. I've always just associated this with any kind of excitement, but thinking about it, reading definitely gives a different kind of 'awake' feeling than a good game or movie would.
Coding doesn't really jolt my imagination, i typically feel good when a section is done and everything works well and is neatly organized, but have expended most of my energy in doing that, there isn't much left. When I read a book it is more coasting through someone elses work, so I feel awake mentally, ready to do something, rather than needing to randomly mash buttons in a game or something post coding.
Doctors also say that sex is good for you . . . (Score:2)
So . . .
just thinking about sex, can activate the neurons associated with the physical act of sex
Now, y'all excuse me, I'm off to "boost my brain" . . .
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Just wait until the church lady finds out about thus and makes a connection to porn/smut. Maybe you will go blind, maybe you won't. Maybe it will make you a deviant, maybe it won't. But i can see the church lady from saturday night live railing about how special this is.
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Yeah, doctors keep saying that, but when I asked one to help me solve that problem and boost my brain she slapped me!
Anecdotally (Score:1)
I'm ridiculously creative after finishing a book or watching a movie. Priming strikes again.
The next task is to find a good book. (Score:1)
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Try something from Brandon Sanderson. Best contemporary fantasy author we have these days.
Agreed. I just finished "The Way of Kings". It ate up most of my vacation but I don't regret it a bit.
Re:The next task is to find a good book. (Score:4, Informative)
I've created a websiteabout the books I plan on making available to my children. It's called Fanatics4Classics [fanatics4classics.com]. The book covers are affiliate links to Amazon 1) because hopefully it will support the site and 2) I like to read Amazon reviews for books, and hopefully others will find them useful as well 3) Amazon has covers for most books, and using their bandwidth is free.
I have an index (linked) of the best 800 fiction books and a huge history selection from Gutenberg (and torrents to download all of those books in either epub or mobi (for Kindle)).
The Amazon links include all of the Gutenberg fiction (for those who like printed books or want to view the reviews) as well as another thousand books from the 20th century that are still under copyright. All of them are organized by reading level and genre.
The site is not completed yet. I'm planning on linking to the best works of Science and other areas of study, a much more extensive list of history,and links to other sites my wife finds useful in homeschooling our kids.
I'm doing this because my wife and I like the Thomas Jefferson Education [tjed.org] model, and while they have a good selection of books on their site, I felt it was incomplete. Anyway, browse around, find something interesting, and read a book.
More (Score:5, Interesting)
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I'd also like to see a control group and a larger sample size, with double-blind testing.
This is a nice piece of info, but there is a big difference between an anecdote versus a properly conducted scientific study that can be checked off in a peer reviewed paper.
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You mean Braille?
It has always worked for me (Score:4, Interesting)
I find that reading a good book is like a complete exercise workout for your brain, and I know I feel a lot sharper when I'm reading regularly.
If I'm having trouble working through some problem or other then taking some time to read is always helpful, even if the subject of the book is unrelated to the problem at hand.
It seems as though it needs to be something with a lot of prose but either fiction or non-fiction works.
Moderately technical non-fiction is OK as long as it is interesting and mentally stimulating (makes you stop and think etc.).
But pure technical books don't seem to help at all and may just clutter things up with new knowledge that the brain is trying to assimilate. So for example pretty much anything from O'Reilly will not make me feel generally smarter even though it may be very good at cramming in the domain specific knowledge I need for some project.
So just reading tech books is not very helpful at all, and needs to be supplemented with more general works from my experience.
G.
Re:It has always worked for me (Score:5, Informative)
It seems as though it needs to be something with a lot of prose but either fiction or non-fiction works.
Moderately technical non-fiction is OK as long as it is interesting and mentally stimulating (makes you stop and think etc.).
But pure technical books don't seem to help at all and may just clutter things up with new knowledge that the brain is trying to assimilate. So for example pretty much anything from O'Reilly will not make me feel generally smarter even though it may be very good at cramming in the domain specific knowledge I need for some project.
So just reading tech books is not very helpful at all, and needs to be supplemented with more general works from my experience.
G.
Even more interesting is that the effect measured only applies to paper books. When the same book is read from an e-format, there is no lasting effect. This coincides with other studies that show that reading an e-book utilizes different parts of the brain than an actual book. The e-book registers in the same areas used when watching tv or a movie. The pathways used to interpret the information presented are different.
All of that said, however, researchers indicate that more study is needed to determine if there is a bias to such data (book vs e-book) because most subjects being tested, grew up with traditional books. They estimate it will be another 10 to 15 years before adult subjects could be studied to see if growing up primarily with e-books alters the brain function in the same way. In otherwords, are the results for books because the subjects tested had their neural pathways developed using books (in which case would the results be the same if they had been formed by e-books)?
Regardless, though, the study shows that reading is good, or as they used to say in the 70s (in the US) Reading is FUNdamental.
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Even more interesting is that the effect measured only applies to paper books. When the same book is read from an e-format, there is no lasting effect.
Research or not the above is bullshit. I am reading Don Quixote right now - on an E Reader. I don't think my brain or me cares about how I read it.
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Even more interesting is that the effect measured only applies to paper books. When the same book is read from an e-format, there is no lasting effect.
Research or not the above is bullshit. I am reading Don Quixote right now - on an E Reader. I don't think my brain or me cares about how I read it.
You would be wrong. FMRI studies show that different areas of the brain are used depending on whether one reads a paper book or an e-book. Search slashdot, there were several articles related to those studies in the past.
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Even more interesting is that the effect measured only applies to paper books. When the same book is read from an e-format, there is no lasting effect.
Citation, please. It may simply be a matter of practice. About a year or so ago, I started reading e-books on my iPad. Initially, I noticed that I could not get 'absorbed' into the novel like with paper - a state of ignoring much of the outside world and concentrating on the book. After a while, I noticed that I could indeed do that and I enjoyed reading on the iPad. Now, I greatly prefer it (other than Amazon's crap method of inserting graphics - a bit of extra resolution won't hurt you guys) to readi
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just search slashdot, it was covered several times previously.
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I wanted to agree with that workout for your brain comment but in a different context: A few years ago I was participating in "National Novel Writing Month". Normally I don't try to be creative at all (successfully utilizing Linux in a lengthy project not withstanding) but for the 30 days of November I wrote for four hours a day creatively for the whole month (the goal is 50k words in 30 days. I finished in about 27). About two weeks in I started having some really weird/messed up dreams.
I was thinking abou
This is verging on pseudoscience (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:This is verging on pseudoscience (Score:5, Informative)
What does "boosted" actually mean? Fuck all
The study is linked to in the story. Are you saying that the abstract [liebertpub.com] (extract below) or paper [liebertpub.com] give enough details for you, or didn't you read them?
On the days after the reading, significant increases in connectivity were centered on hubs in the left angular/supramarginal gyri and right posterior temporal gyri. These hubs corresponded to regions previously associated with perspective taking and story comprehension, and the changes exhibited a timecourse that decayed rapidly after the completion of the novel. Long-term changes in connectivity, which persisted for several days after the reading, were observed in bilateral somatosensory cortex, suggesting a potential mechanism for “embodied semantics.”
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What does "boosted" actually mean? Fuck all
The study is linked to in the story. Are you saying that the abstract [liebertpub.com] (extract below) or paper [liebertpub.com] give enough details for you, or didn't you read them?
Hmm, something is up. I read the summary and the article. After reading your post I re-read the article looking for the details you linked. I still don't see them. Thanks for those links, cold fjord.
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The link is small, and towards the end of the summary. I am happy to oblige. I hope you enjoyed it.
I will wish you a Happy New Year!
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No, I did look at them. The newspaper's summary is shitty but you can see where it comes from in the original article. For example, the last sentence "but our results suggest a potential mechanism by which reading stories not only strengthen language processing regions but also affect the individual through embodied semantics in sensorimotor regions." The way I see it, "strengthen language processing regions" is just as wishy-washy as the term "boosted."
I want to like fMRI but, for many reasons, the tec
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Same with music (Score:1)
Band practice on a weeknight typically means my head hits the pillow at 1:30 AM but the creative rush totally compensates for the sleep deprivation.
Study: 140 Character Tweets (Score:2)
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It's probably a mixed bag. Although there is a lot of useful factual information posted there, there is also a lot of fiction. There is regularly some confusion about which is which, although some readers are more susceptible to failure to successfully differentiate than others. More study is needed.
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It's probably a mixed bag. Although there is a lot of useful factual information posted there, there is also a lot of fiction. There is regularly some confusion about which is which, although some readers are more susceptible to failure to successfully differentiate than others. More study is needed.
In the context of this article, fact vs fiction doesn't seem to play a role. In fact, fiction may be even more effective as it could be more engaging. The question would be, is /. engaging enough to put you into the mind of someone else? I think the answer is no.
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Do you think it also applies to reading slashdot threads ? I always feel very smart and often very sad after reading the comments section.
Interesting. I usually feel like I should take another shower. Or at least wash my brain out with Clorox.
Brain cells die. (Score:2)
100 died just reading your comment and making this post.
Transport me into the protagonist? (Score:2)
So my reading list would be:
The Talented Mr. Ripley
The Prince
Soon I will be Invincible
The Call of Cthulhu
Richard III
Any kind of sustained concentrated thinking does (Score:3)
Any kind of sustained, concentrated thinking does this. The brain is very reactive and adapts quickly , instantly to stresses put on it in terms of not only coordination , balance and physical skill but also higher cognitive functions, abstract reasoning, emotional reasoning, meditation, self control, anything you can name. I have noticed generally the more vascular and active the tissue, the faster it adapts. Brains change like that. Muscles recover after 5 or so days. Tendons take weeks to heal. Bones take a even longer to heal (change).
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Any kind of sustained, concentrated thinking does this. The brain is very reactive and adapts quickly , instantly to stresses put on it in terms of not only coordination , balance and physical skill but also higher cognitive functions, abstract reasoning, emotional reasoning, meditation, self control, anything you can name. I have noticed generally the more vascular and active the tissue, the faster it adapts. Brains change like that.
How on earth do you know this? It sounds like a hypothesis you're making up.
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The vascular part I am guessing / noting / observing.. it's a ,thing I noted a long time ago is all.
The rest of it is information readily available . The general topic goes by the name of neural plasticity which is broken down into functional and structural .
It's not the thing I research specifically so I am not loaded down with bookmarks for you but I know all about it from undergrad
For people with no neuroscience background there's books like The Brain That Changes Itself and of course it's a bi
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After I read a good book (Score:3)
I find after I read a good book that I keep thinking about it for days. Usually on things I think the chars should of did, or how to deal with situation they did.
I rarely get that way after movies or video games, but sometimes I do. (Half-Life 2 I did, really enjoyed that game).
So basically if there is a good story, my mind will keep thinking on it for a few days.
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I find after I read a good book that I keep thinking about it for days. Usually on things I think the chars should of did, or how to deal with situation they did.
I rarely get that way after movies or video games, but sometimes I do. (Half-Life 2 I did, really enjoyed that game).
So basically if there is a good story, my mind will keep thinking on it for a few days.
hit enter too soon. Thing about good books is that I usually wish they didn't end. So that could be why I think on it more then I would any other books.
Other media (Score:2)
Strange, I find the opposite happens (Score:5, Funny)
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It's worse than that. I often see dumb ideas propagate from person to person. We have discovered "social media diseases."
How about a more passive experience? Visual! (Score:1)
And (Score:1)
Watching TV has the opposite effect.
So it is true (Score:3)
‘A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.’
Not for me. They put me to sleep... (Score:2)
... But then I don't have a brain. :P
Duh (Score:2)
Shorter summary: "doing things changes your brain". Obviously it does, or we'd all be living like that guy from Memento. #notnews