Reading great novel is the immersive experience which can make the brain come alive with imagery and emotions and even turn on senses. In reading, we can really physically change the brain structure, become more concerned, and even trick the brains into thinking we have experienced what we have only read in novels.
We make photos in the minds, even without being prompted:
Reading books and other materials with dramatic imagery is not only fun, it also permits us to make worlds in the minds. But did you know that this occur even if you do not mean it to? Researchers have observed that visual imagery is just automatic. Readers were able to recognize photos of objects faster if they’d just read the sentence which explained the object visually, recommending that when we read the sentence, we automatically bring up images of objects in the minds.
Spoken word can put the brain to work:
Critics are rapid to discharge audio books as the sub-par reading experience, but study has shown that act of listening to the story can light up brain. When we are told story, not only are language processing parts of the brain activated, experiential parts of the brain come alive, too. Sensory cortex lights up, while motion activates motor cortex. And while you may believe that this is limited only to audio books or reading, experts persist that brains are exposed to narratives all day long.
Reading about experiences is almost the same as living it:
Have you ever felt so linked to story that it is as if you experienced it in actual life? There is a good reason why: your brain really thinks that you have experienced it. When we read, brain doesn’t make real difference between reading about experience and really living it. Whether reading or experiencing it, same neurological regions are motivated.
Different styles of reading make different patterns in brain:
Any type of reading gives stimulation for brain, but different kinds of reading give different experiences with different benefits. Stanford University researchers have observed that close literary reading in particular provides your brain workout in multiple complex cognitive functions, while pleasure reading raises blood flow to different areas of brain. They concluded that reading novel strongly for literary study and thinking about its value is the efficient brain exercise, more efficient than plain pleasure reading alone.
Novel languages can grow brain:
Choose a foreign language novel. Researchers at tested students from Swedish Armed Forces Interpreter Academy, where thorough language learning is the custom, and medicine and cognitive science students at Umea University. Both groups underwent brain scans just previous to and right after the three-month period of rigorous study. Incredibly, language students experienced brain growth in both hippocampus and cerebral cortex, with various levels of brain growth according to quantity of effort and learning students experienced in that span of time.
Brain adapts to reading e-books in seven days:
If you are used to reading paper books, choosing the e-reader can feel very uncomfortable at first. But experts persist that brain can adopt new technology rapidly, no matter your age or how long you have been reading on paper. Actually, human brain adapts to new technology, counting e-reading, within seven days.
Story structure motivates the brains to believe in sequence, expanding attention spans:
Stories have a starting, middle, and end, and that is a good thing for brain. With this structure, our brains are motivated to believe in sequence, linking cause and effect. More you read, more your brain is capable to adapt to this line of thinking.
Reading alters the brain structure in a good way:
Not everyone is natural reader. Poor readers may not really know joy of literature, but they can be taught to become better readers. And in this training, their brains really change. In the six-month daily reading program from Carnegie Mellon, scientists observed that volume of white matter in language area of brain really increased.
Deep reading creates us more empathetic:
It feels great to lose yourself in the book, and doing so can even physically change the brain. As we let go of emotional and mental chatter found in real world, we benefit from deep reading which permits us to feel what characters in the story feel. And this in turn makes us more concerned to people in actual life, becoming more aware and attentive to lives of others.