This fascinating research shows that when we hear stories, brain patterns appear that transcend culture and language and there may be a universal code that underlies making sense of narratives.
Following a narrative and understanding the story’s meaning and themes, as well as the interaction of causes and effects across time, involves challenging cognitive gymnastics. But of course, our brains make it seem effortless.
Neuroscience has made headway in finding out which brain regions help us to understand smaller chunks of language – words and sentences. Following a story involves a steady accumulation of meaning.
Storytelling and the brain
Researchers* wanted to understand whether or not the same story but told in different languages would activate similar brain regions in native speakers of those languages.
Additionally, they planned to see whether they could work out which specific story a participant was reading by analyzing their brain activity alone.
The team sifted through 20 million blog posts including personal stories.
- They narrowed this wealth of stories down to 40, all of which covered personal topics such as going through divorce or telling a lie.
- These stories were then condensed to a paragraph of around 150 words.
- Next, the English stories were translated into Mandarin Chinese and Farsi.
- 90 participants of American, Chinese, and Iranian descent read the stories while their brains were scanned using functional MRI scans.
- The USC team used cutting-edge machine learning and text-analysis techniques, including an analysis involving 44 billion classifications to “reverse engineer” data from the scans.
They were able to determine which story any individual reader was listening to in any of the three languages purely from the brain activity that they were measuring. In other words, the researchers were reading the participants’ minds as they read the stories.
“Even given these fundamental differences in language, which can be read in a different direction or contain a completely different alphabet altogether, there is something universal about what occurs in the brain at the point when we are processing narratives.”
Where were these patterns found?
“The distinctive patterns created in the readers’ brains were measured in an area called the default mode network. This region links a number of interconnected parts, including the medial prefrontal cortex, inferior parietal lobe, posterior cingulate cortex, hippocampal formation, and the lateral temporal cortex.”
“Previous findings suggest that the default mode network is activated when the mind appears to be at rest – for instance, when it is searching for narratives, retrieving autobiographical memories, and influencing the way we think relating to the past, present, and future, and our relationships with others.”
This study bring us one step closer to understanding how we achieve this complex feat so quickly and seamlessly. If only writing, editing and publishing were as quick and seamless!
Available free until September 23
*Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles Their findings are published in the journal Human Brain Mapping.
Wow! I used to do neurotransmitter research and this is fascinating to me! I LOVE your beautifully written, extremely informative posts! Thank you!!❤
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Gail,
Thank you so much, we are very happy that you like our blog. It is written with love. You must have wonderful cats! How lucky for you, like I was lucky to have Maui.
Peggy
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