5 ms·

Want To Read Others' Thoughts? Try Reading Literary Fiction

47 points by jonchang 13y ago

Numberwang 13y ago
Here's Jerry Coyne and Stephen Pinker with some skepticism. http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/does-reading-literary-fiction-make-us-empathic/ http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/does-read...
dm3 13y ago
Literary fiction develops empathy and sense of morality. It's sad to see so many people completely neglecting literary fiction as being not useful or less advantageous than technical or other non-fictional literature. I always regarded technical literature as vitamins for the mind, while fiction (as well as other art) is vitamins for the soul.
6ren 13y ago
Help: I scroll down past the large image, get comfortable, and read the first paragraph or so... then the page fully loads, and suddenly resets to the top of page. It's a minor irritation, but it happens very often, and seems so unnecessary and so wrong. Anyone know how to stop this? (I'm using FF24 on linux, but I suspect it's some onLoad javascript.)
- ANTSANTS 13y ago
  Try browsing with NoScript for a few days? Your experience may differ, but for me, having to whitelist a site every now and then is far less annoying than constantly putting up with crap like this.
tpholland 13y ago
An interesting post looking in detail at the methodology and implications of this study on Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715
- JonnieCache 13y ago
  This is a pretty devastating critique. Everyone here should read it before taking this study seriously.
  - bane 13y ago
    It also explains why over the past few days my Facebook wall has been flooded with people taking emotional recognition tests full of moody actor eyes looking into the distance.
ma2rten 13y ago
What also helps, arguably more directly and backed up by more research, are mindfulness and compassion meditation. Mindfulness meditation makes one more observant, while compassion meditation is a way of directly stimulating that part of the brain. Here is a quick reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81#Benefits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81#Benefits http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-morality-of-meditation.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-moralit...
- 001sky 13y ago
  This suffers from lack of priors. The purpose of fiction, is to get those priors. meditation is ultimately narcisistic (ie, self-referential), whereas fiction is highly scalable (you get a bunch of external characters and their internal motivations provided for you). So in this sense, the purpose of fiction is providing something akin to genetic diversity.
  - ma2rten 13y ago
    You don't really need priors to understand other people, because other people feel exactly the same emotions as you do. The problem is that we are often in a narcissistic frame of mind, where we care more about our own problems and worries, then paying attention to people around us. Both reading and meditation, can help to get you out of that frame of mind. At least that is my understanding.
    - 6d0debc071 13y ago
      > You don't really need priors to understand other people, because other people feel exactly the same emotions as you do. Under very different conditions, with different emotions running alongside them and in very different intensities arising from a wide range of possible causes. Other people do not all feel as I do, any more than they want what I do. The contrary claim is roughly analogous to claiming that all programs are the same because they're all made of 1s and 0s.
pessimizer 13y ago
Theory of Mind, or Theory-Theory, is far more based in literary fiction than it is based on any experimental evidence of human construction or behavior. Without reading the paywalled study, I'd assume that reading literary fiction would give you insight into how people who write literary fiction (and those who share their demographic) see themselves, but not into their actual behavior. In other words, I'd speculate that this holds true when evaluating the interpretations of the anxieties and guilt of upper middle class people who went to small liberal arts colleges in the east, and the people who aspire to associate with them. Otherwise, not so much. Edit: Awful - http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715
- reader5000 13y ago
  You seem to have some bitter classism issues there. Didn't get into Brown?
- rmk2 13y ago
  > Without reading the paywalled study, I'd assume that reading literary fiction would give you insight into how people who write literary fiction (and those who share their demographic) see themselves, but not into their actual behavior. The authors make no such assumption. Their understanding of literature draws on Barthes & Bakhtin, which leads them to the dichotomy of readerly and writerly texts. Whenever they talk about these texts, however, they know not to make assumptions about authors at all. The division between author, narrator and character (and, depending on your background, an implied author) have been well established within literatery studies with Genette, Stanzel and Iser. Reading a book tells you very little about the "actual" author or background, because the process of writing is necessary one of construction and selection. Even an autobiography does not simply tell you the unmitigated, unfiltered, "actual" truth. Reading fiction, then, tells you very little about people's self-images or (historic) background. What it does, however, is that it makes you aware of the distinct construction involved, as well as the divide between fact and fiction. This, in turn, lets you make certain more educated guesses as to the content and surroundings of peoples' utterances, and perhaps how to understand or interpret them.
6d0debc071 13y ago
So, photos of actors, who are used to trying to portray emotions in works that closely match high-brow literary fiction, were more easily guessed correctly when someone had been reading such books. It seems somewhat of a stretch to say, on the basis of that alone, that people were better at reading others emotions.
bane 13y ago
From the sounds of the article (paper is blocked) it appears that what's actually being tested is the ability of people to read the thoughts of fictional or portrayed characters. > For example, folks who were assigned to read highbrow literary works did better on a test called "Reading the Mind in the Eyes," which required them to look at black-and-white photographs of actors' eyes and decide what emotion the actors were expressing. A running joke in some acting circles is to sit down with a fellow actor and give them emotions to try and "emote". It becomes a joke because the emotions that are thrown out quickly become hard to even understand let alone interpret into a face. "pensive anticipatory surprise!" "respectful despair!" The problem with this is that it tests for the ability of an audience to "read" a fictional character, but not necessarily a real one. For example: this http://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/10/091031002319-large.jpg http://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/10/091031002319-large.jp... is an actor making an angry face. How many people here know someone real who's face becomes absolutely calm when they are in the heat of rage? Authors have no greater insight into people's psychologies than anybody else, but they can construct a character that, when well motivated, has a representational psychology that can drive a story. However, various factors make this hard in many cases as certain, close to real, believable characters really require the author to, in some sense, "be" that character in order to represent that character's thought processes. This frequently falls down in certain cross-representations. For example, cross-gender representations are frequently very flat: women written by women tend to have full and complex inner worlds while their men tend to be flat archetypes and visa-versa. Really good authors get praise for writing cross-representational characters well and the best authors simply try and avoid it through clever story construction (unfamiliar cross-characters are turned into flat background players, or they're turned into crazy people where their madness creates an unpredictable inner-drive that covers up for the authors lack of knowledge). What was the last book anybody read, written by a White American privileged male author that explored the inner psychology of a Black inner-city French teen girl? You'll notice that children are also as terribly written as they are painted in Renaissance paintings. http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/ http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/ It's not that the author never lived as a child, but that as children, we don't have the faculty and level of self-awareness to record what it's like to be a child in most cases. More importantly, emotional display is often very cultural. Can anybody tell me what this emotion is? http://www.sarugallery.com/files/B1120nor.jpg http://www.sarugallery.com/files/B1120nor.jpg or this? http://www.theoneshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/20130616_theoneshots_salima_2pm_minjun.jpg http://www.theoneshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/201306... or this? http://en.korea.com/fx/files/2011/07/14.jpg http://en.korea.com/fx/files/2011/07/14.jpg So I'm colored very skeptical about this paper. I think it measures something, but the conclusion about what it's measuring is wrong.
AnonJ 13y ago
Of course… Literary fiction is way better than popcorn culture escapism popular fiction, on a serious perspective. However, I believe, on understanding others, the best books are still those nonfiction books which try to directly analyze and cut the clutter. Literary fictions are subtle and lengthy, tending to be misunderstood, but nonfiction books/articles are the most effective in conveying the knowledge. Also I can't help but feeling this study very loose.
- Misterburns 13y ago
  Yes reading nonfiction maximizes knowledge absorption with respect to time and cost. But that is not the objective of literary fiction. Literary fiction maximizes "emotional sensation". This is a futile attribute in humans who should instead be maximizing their utility.
AnonJ 13y ago
To "guess" is one thing but to get it correctly is another. Of course popcorn literature won't help you anything on understanding humanity, but I doubt whether literary classics tend to create some misunderstanding and confusion. Still the most effective way to improve your understanding of others is to read direct books which talk about understanding others.
jonchang 13y ago
Here are copies of the paper and supplementary material: Paper: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013-Science.1239918.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013... Supplement: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013-Science.1239918-SOM.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013...

47 points by jonchang 13y ago

Here's Jerry Coyne and Stephen Pinker with some skepticism. http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/does-reading-literary-fiction-make-us-empathic/ http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2013/10/06/does-read...

dm3 13y ago

Literary fiction develops empathy and sense of morality. It's sad to see so many people completely neglecting literary fiction as being not useful or less advantageous than technical or other non-fictional literature. I always regarded technical literature as vitamins for the mind, while fiction (as well as other art) is vitamins for the soul.

6ren 13y ago

Help: I scroll down past the large image, get comfortable, and read the first paragraph or so... then the page fully loads, and suddenly resets to the top of page. It's a minor irritation, but it happens very often, and seems so unnecessary and so wrong. Anyone know how to stop this? (I'm using FF24 on linux, but I suspect it's some onLoad javascript.)

ANTSANTS 13y ago
Try browsing with NoScript for a few days? Your experience may differ, but for me, having to whitelist a site every now and then is far less annoying than constantly putting up with crap like this.

tpholland 13y ago

An interesting post looking in detail at the methodology and implications of this study on Language Log: http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715

JonnieCache 13y ago
This is a pretty devastating critique. Everyone here should read it before taking this study seriously.
- bane 13y ago
  It also explains why over the past few days my Facebook wall has been flooded with people taking emotional recognition tests full of moody actor eyes looking into the distance.

ma2rten 13y ago

What also helps, arguably more directly and backed up by more research, are mindfulness and compassion meditation. Mindfulness meditation makes one more observant, while compassion meditation is a way of directly stimulating that part of the brain. Here is a quick reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81#Benefits http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mett%C4%81#Benefits http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-morality-of-meditation.html http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/07/opinion/sunday/the-moralit...

001sky 13y ago
This suffers from lack of priors. The purpose of fiction, is to get those priors. meditation is ultimately narcisistic (ie, self-referential), whereas fiction is highly scalable (you get a bunch of external characters and their internal motivations provided for you). So in this sense, the purpose of fiction is providing something akin to genetic diversity.
- ma2rten 13y ago
  You don't really need priors to understand other people, because other people feel exactly the same emotions as you do. The problem is that we are often in a narcissistic frame of mind, where we care more about our own problems and worries, then paying attention to people around us. Both reading and meditation, can help to get you out of that frame of mind. At least that is my understanding.
  - 6d0debc071 13y ago
    > You don't really need priors to understand other people, because other people feel exactly the same emotions as you do. Under very different conditions, with different emotions running alongside them and in very different intensities arising from a wide range of possible causes. Other people do not all feel as I do, any more than they want what I do. The contrary claim is roughly analogous to claiming that all programs are the same because they're all made of 1s and 0s.

pessimizer 13y ago

Theory of Mind, or Theory-Theory, is far more based in literary fiction than it is based on any experimental evidence of human construction or behavior. Without reading the paywalled study, I'd assume that reading literary fiction would give you insight into how people who write literary fiction (and those who share their demographic) see themselves, but not into their actual behavior. In other words, I'd speculate that this holds true when evaluating the interpretations of the anxieties and guilt of upper middle class people who went to small liberal arts colleges in the east, and the people who aspire to associate with them. Otherwise, not so much. Edit: Awful - http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715 http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=7715

reader5000 13y ago
You seem to have some bitter classism issues there. Didn't get into Brown?
rmk2 13y ago
> Without reading the paywalled study, I'd assume that reading literary fiction would give you insight into how people who write literary fiction (and those who share their demographic) see themselves, but not into their actual behavior. The authors make no such assumption. Their understanding of literature draws on Barthes & Bakhtin, which leads them to the dichotomy of readerly and writerly texts. Whenever they talk about these texts, however, they know not to make assumptions about authors at all. The division between author, narrator and character (and, depending on your background, an implied author) have been well established within literatery studies with Genette, Stanzel and Iser. Reading a book tells you very little about the "actual" author or background, because the process of writing is necessary one of construction and selection. Even an autobiography does not simply tell you the unmitigated, unfiltered, "actual" truth. Reading fiction, then, tells you very little about people's self-images or (historic) background. What it does, however, is that it makes you aware of the distinct construction involved, as well as the divide between fact and fiction. This, in turn, lets you make certain more educated guesses as to the content and surroundings of peoples' utterances, and perhaps how to understand or interpret them.

6d0debc071 13y ago

So, photos of actors, who are used to trying to portray emotions in works that closely match high-brow literary fiction, were more easily guessed correctly when someone had been reading such books. It seems somewhat of a stretch to say, on the basis of that alone, that people were better at reading others emotions.

bane 13y ago

From the sounds of the article (paper is blocked) it appears that what's actually being tested is the ability of people to read the thoughts of fictional or portrayed characters. > For example, folks who were assigned to read highbrow literary works did better on a test called "Reading the Mind in the Eyes," which required them to look at black-and-white photographs of actors' eyes and decide what emotion the actors were expressing. A running joke in some acting circles is to sit down with a fellow actor and give them emotions to try and "emote". It becomes a joke because the emotions that are thrown out quickly become hard to even understand let alone interpret into a face. "pensive anticipatory surprise!" "respectful despair!" The problem with this is that it tests for the ability of an audience to "read" a fictional character, but not necessarily a real one. For example: this http://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/10/091031002319-large.jpg http://images.sciencedaily.com/2009/10/091031002319-large.jp... is an actor making an angry face. How many people here know someone real who's face becomes absolutely calm when they are in the heat of rage? Authors have no greater insight into people's psychologies than anybody else, but they can construct a character that, when well motivated, has a representational psychology that can drive a story. However, various factors make this hard in many cases as certain, close to real, believable characters really require the author to, in some sense, "be" that character in order to represent that character's thought processes. This frequently falls down in certain cross-representations. For example, cross-gender representations are frequently very flat: women written by women tend to have full and complex inner worlds while their men tend to be flat archetypes and visa-versa. Really good authors get praise for writing cross-representational characters well and the best authors simply try and avoid it through clever story construction (unfamiliar cross-characters are turned into flat background players, or they're turned into crazy people where their madness creates an unpredictable inner-drive that covers up for the authors lack of knowledge). What was the last book anybody read, written by a White American privileged male author that explored the inner psychology of a Black inner-city French teen girl? You'll notice that children are also as terribly written as they are painted in Renaissance paintings. http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/ http://uglyrenaissancebabies.tumblr.com/ It's not that the author never lived as a child, but that as children, we don't have the faculty and level of self-awareness to record what it's like to be a child in most cases. More importantly, emotional display is often very cultural. Can anybody tell me what this emotion is? http://www.sarugallery.com/files/B1120nor.jpg http://www.sarugallery.com/files/B1120nor.jpg or this? http://www.theoneshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/20130616_theoneshots_salima_2pm_minjun.jpg http://www.theoneshots.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/201306... or this? http://en.korea.com/fx/files/2011/07/14.jpg http://en.korea.com/fx/files/2011/07/14.jpg So I'm colored very skeptical about this paper. I think it measures something, but the conclusion about what it's measuring is wrong.

AnonJ 13y ago

Of course… Literary fiction is way better than popcorn culture escapism popular fiction, on a serious perspective. However, I believe, on understanding others, the best books are still those nonfiction books which try to directly analyze and cut the clutter. Literary fictions are subtle and lengthy, tending to be misunderstood, but nonfiction books/articles are the most effective in conveying the knowledge. Also I can't help but feeling this study very loose.

Misterburns 13y ago
Yes reading nonfiction maximizes knowledge absorption with respect to time and cost. But that is not the objective of literary fiction. Literary fiction maximizes "emotional sensation". This is a futile attribute in humans who should instead be maximizing their utility.

AnonJ 13y ago

To "guess" is one thing but to get it correctly is another. Of course popcorn literature won't help you anything on understanding humanity, but I doubt whether literary classics tend to create some misunderstanding and confusion. Still the most effective way to improve your understanding of others is to read direct books which talk about understanding others.

jonchang 13y ago

Here are copies of the paper and supplementary material: Paper: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013-Science.1239918.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013... Supplement: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013-Science.1239918-SOM.pdf https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/8859543/papers/Kidd-2013...