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How does the experience of reading a good novel differ from listening to the same story on audiobook? Are different parts of the brain engaged?
Inés AntÓn Méndez
Madrid, Spain
There are definitely different parts of the brain engaged, at the very least, at the beginning of the process: reading engages the visual system for letter/word recognition and listening engages the auditory system for phoneme (speech sound) recognition. But I suspect that the questioner means differences further down the line.
As New Å®ÉúСÊÓƵ has reported (27 May 2023, p 51), there is some evidence that the processing depth of the two modalities can vary – with reading inducing a more analytical mode than listening.
There are many reasons why this may be the case. It could be that, reading being a relatively recent development in the history of humankind, it is more cognitively demanding, which could ultimately result in a deeper level of analysis than when the task is easier and can be achieved with shallower processing. The fact that one can multitask when listening, but not so much when reading, testifies to the different cognitive demands of the two modalities.
Once the information is extracted, however, it is likely to follow the same path. So, for material for which the analytical and instinctive paths don’t deliver different results, how these results are then stored in memory or associate with other knowledge the reader/listener has is probably similar.
With one exception: when committing new information to memory, the what (the content) is processed independently from other ancillary information relating to contextual factors at play when obtaining information, such as where you obtained it, when, etc (which is called source memory). In our case, the “what” of what was read or heard will be accompanied by a different “how” depending on the modality.
Still, I am an avid consumer of both printed books and audiobooks and sometimes I can´t remember whether a particular one was consumed through my eyes or my ears. This is because source memory is more labile and likely to be forgotten, leaving only the content or item memory.
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There is one breed of cat that is able to come head first down a tree – the Norwegian forest cat. I have seen mine do it
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Incidentally, I have the same thing with languages. I often can’t remember whether I read (or heard) something in English or Spanish. So, language is also treated as source memory and not part of the “essential” content.
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