Abstract
Reading fiction for pleasure is robustly correlated with improved cognitive attainment and other benefits. It is also in decline among young people in developed nations, in part because of competition from moving image fiction. We review existing research on the differences between reading or hearing verbal fiction and watching moving image fiction, as well as looking more broadly at research on image or text interactions and visual versus verbal processing. We conclude that verbal narrative generates more diverse responses than moving image narrative. We note that reading and viewing narrative are different tasks, with different cognitive loads. Viewing moving image narrative mostly involves visual processing with some working memory engagement, whereas reading narrative involves verbal processing, visual imagery, and personal memory (Xu et al., 2005). Attempts to compare the two by creating equivalent stimuli and task demands face a number of challenges. We discuss the difficulties of such comparative approaches. We then investigate the possibility of identifying lower level processing mechanisms that might distinguish cognition of the two media and propose internal scene construction and working memory as foci for future research. Although many of the sources we draw on concentrate on English-speaking participants in European or North American settings, we also cover material relating to speakers of Dutch, German, Hebrew, and Japanese in their respective countries, and studies of a remote Turkish mountain community.
Highlights
We recommend a focus on neural mechanisms at comparatively low levels of processing and time scales, in combination with an awareness of the rich and holistic nature of narrative experience, which can encompass memory, imagination, empathy, spatial resources, inference, emotion, and transportation as well as the potential to create meaning in relation to the self
The wide range of benefits associated with reading or hearing fiction, coupled with the richness of the experience, suggests that a simplistic explanation involving cognitive transfer may not be available (Melby-Lervåg et al, 2016)
We suggest that one explanation for this finding is that processing written fiction relies more heavily on the resources of the episodic memory system
Summary
Reading fiction in particular, for enjoyment has been positively correlated with young people’s attainment in a wide range of studies across different countries, many, such as the OECD’s PISA studies, involving large cohorts (Cunningham and Stanovich, 1998; PIRL, 2001, 2006; Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2002, 2010; Picture This: Narrative Processing. An analysis of data on identical twins by Ritchie et al suggests that an association between reading and either genetic traits or socio-economic background cannot explain all of the benefits of reading for pleasure (Ritchie et al, 2015; see Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), 2002) Nor is it clear whether, for example, watching highly crafted moving image fiction for enjoyment could have comparable benefits. We consider internal scene construction, supported by the episodic memory system, and the potential for differential engagements of verbal and visual working memory in different media These mechanisms may be implemented in the ways that both lower and higher level causal patterns in narrative are constructed, through flexibility of concept instantiation. “Moving image” refers to all kinds of screen-based moving image stimuli, from those seen in cinemas to those watched on phones This term covers both animations and live action films. This is distinct from “immersion” or “presence,” terms used to describe the experience of a medium, more or less independent of narration (Busselle and Bilandzic, 2008)
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