1 00:00:01,920 --> 00:00:06,360 Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey 2 00:00:06,440 --> 00:00:09,520 Speaker 1: brain Stuff. I'm Lauren Vogelbaum, and today's episode is another 3 00:00:09,560 --> 00:00:13,040 Speaker 1: classic from our archives. If you had a chance to 4 00:00:13,160 --> 00:00:15,239 Speaker 1: listen to our episode back in the beginning of May 5 00:00:15,360 --> 00:00:18,079 Speaker 1: about Edgar Allan Poe, which included a reading of his 6 00:00:18,160 --> 00:00:21,800 Speaker 1: poem The Raven, there's a good chance that different parts 7 00:00:21,840 --> 00:00:25,080 Speaker 1: of your brain activated while listening to the episode versus 8 00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:29,320 Speaker 1: the poem. We know this because of researchers who asked 9 00:00:29,360 --> 00:00:33,440 Speaker 1: the question of the day, is the human brain hardwired 10 00:00:33,600 --> 00:00:39,040 Speaker 1: for poetry? Hey brain Stuff, Lauren vogel Baum. Here, whether 11 00:00:39,080 --> 00:00:42,720 Speaker 1: it's Alfred Lord Tennyson's Ulysses or Maya Angelou's Caged Bird, 12 00:00:43,080 --> 00:00:45,800 Speaker 1: there's something about reading or hearing a great poem that 13 00:00:45,880 --> 00:00:48,839 Speaker 1: stimulates our minds, moving us to ponder the world from 14 00:00:48,880 --> 00:00:52,320 Speaker 1: new angles and from a neuroscientific point of view. That's 15 00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:56,080 Speaker 1: no accident. In recent years, researchers have used fMRI I 16 00:00:56,360 --> 00:01:00,280 Speaker 1: that's functional magnetic resonance imaging and other sophisticated tools to 17 00:01:00,400 --> 00:01:04,080 Speaker 1: study how the human brain reacts to poetry. They've discovered, 18 00:01:04,120 --> 00:01:06,640 Speaker 1: among other things, that the brain seems to be wired 19 00:01:06,760 --> 00:01:09,800 Speaker 1: to recognize the rhymes and rhythms that poets use and 20 00:01:09,880 --> 00:01:13,679 Speaker 1: to differentiate them from ordinary speech or prose. They've also 21 00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:16,959 Speaker 1: found that contemplating poetic imagery and the multiple layers of 22 00:01:16,959 --> 00:01:20,560 Speaker 1: meanings and poems activates specific areas of the brain, some 23 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:22,759 Speaker 1: of the same areas that help us to interpret our 24 00:01:22,800 --> 00:01:26,840 Speaker 1: everyday reality. So I mentioned that our brains seem wired 25 00:01:26,920 --> 00:01:30,360 Speaker 1: to recognize poetry. Let's unpack that. In a study published 26 00:01:30,400 --> 00:01:33,720 Speaker 1: in the journal Frontiers of Psychology, researchers at the UK's 27 00:01:33,760 --> 00:01:37,000 Speaker 1: Banger University read an assortment of sentences to a group 28 00:01:37,000 --> 00:01:40,399 Speaker 1: of Welsh speaking subjects. Some of the sentences conformed to 29 00:01:40,480 --> 00:01:44,319 Speaker 1: the intricate poetic construction rules of konkand, a traditional form 30 00:01:44,360 --> 00:01:47,160 Speaker 1: of Welsh poetry, while others did not follow those rules. 31 00:01:47,760 --> 00:01:50,440 Speaker 1: Although the subjects knew as little about Koncanada as I 32 00:01:50,480 --> 00:01:54,480 Speaker 1: know about pronouncing Welsh, they nevertheless categorized as good these 33 00:01:54,520 --> 00:01:57,880 Speaker 1: sentences that followed the rules as compared to other sentences. 34 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:00,520 Speaker 1: The researchers also hooked up the subje X to E 35 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:03,720 Speaker 1: e G devices and observed a distinctive burst of electrical 36 00:02:03,720 --> 00:02:06,440 Speaker 1: activity in the subject's brains that occurred in the fraction 37 00:02:06,480 --> 00:02:08,760 Speaker 1: of a second after hearing the last word of a 38 00:02:08,800 --> 00:02:12,720 Speaker 1: poetic line. We spoke with bang Or psychology professor Gyum 39 00:02:12,800 --> 00:02:16,040 Speaker 1: Cheery via email. They said, I believe that our results 40 00:02:16,120 --> 00:02:20,160 Speaker 1: argue for a profoundly intuitive origin of poetry. Poetry appears 41 00:02:20,200 --> 00:02:23,320 Speaker 1: to be built in. It's like a profound intuition. Every 42 00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:27,440 Speaker 1: human being is an unconscious poet. Poetry also seems to 43 00:02:27,440 --> 00:02:30,359 Speaker 1: affect specific areas of the brain, depending upon the degree 44 00:02:30,360 --> 00:02:33,239 Speaker 1: of emotion and the complexity of the language and ideas. 45 00:02:33,800 --> 00:02:37,400 Speaker 1: In a study published in in the Journal of Consciousness Studies, 46 00:02:37,680 --> 00:02:41,560 Speaker 1: researchers at the UK's University of Exeter had participants lay 47 00:02:41,600 --> 00:02:44,000 Speaker 1: inside an f M R I scanner while they read 48 00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:48,000 Speaker 1: various texts on a screen. The selections ranged from deliberately 49 00:02:48,080 --> 00:02:50,639 Speaker 1: dull prose such as a section from a heating equipment 50 00:02:50,720 --> 00:02:55,200 Speaker 1: installation manual, to passages from novels to samples from various poems, 51 00:02:55,440 --> 00:02:58,160 Speaker 1: a few of which the subjects had identified as their favorites. 52 00:02:58,600 --> 00:03:01,359 Speaker 1: The subjects had to rate the texts on qualities such 53 00:03:01,360 --> 00:03:04,120 Speaker 1: as how much emotion they aroused and how literary or 54 00:03:04,240 --> 00:03:07,920 Speaker 1: difficult to contemplate they were. The researchers found that the 55 00:03:08,040 --> 00:03:10,840 Speaker 1: higher the degree of emotiveness that the subjects assigned to 56 00:03:10,840 --> 00:03:14,200 Speaker 1: a sample. The more activation the scans showed in areas 57 00:03:14,240 --> 00:03:16,520 Speaker 1: on the right side of the brain, many of the 58 00:03:16,560 --> 00:03:19,040 Speaker 1: same ones identified in a two thousand one study as 59 00:03:19,040 --> 00:03:22,359 Speaker 1: being activated by music that moved listeners to feel chills 60 00:03:22,440 --> 00:03:26,280 Speaker 1: or shivers down their spines. The examples rated as more literary. 61 00:03:26,400 --> 00:03:29,400 Speaker 1: In contrast, lit up areas mostly on the left side 62 00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:32,440 Speaker 1: of the brain, including the basal ganglia, which are involved 63 00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:36,760 Speaker 1: both in regulating movement and processing challenging sentences. The subject's 64 00:03:36,800 --> 00:03:39,880 Speaker 1: favorite poems weakly activated a network in the brain associated 65 00:03:39,920 --> 00:03:43,840 Speaker 1: with reading, but strongly activated the inferior parietal lobes, an 66 00:03:43,880 --> 00:03:48,440 Speaker 1: area associated with recognition. Yet another recent experiment, detailed in 67 00:03:48,440 --> 00:03:53,200 Speaker 1: a article in the neuroscience journal Cortex, University of Liverpool 68 00:03:53,240 --> 00:03:55,760 Speaker 1: researchers used an fMRI I to scan the brains of 69 00:03:55,800 --> 00:03:58,800 Speaker 1: subjects while they read various passages of poetry and prose, 70 00:03:59,160 --> 00:04:01,200 Speaker 1: in an effort to mind what parts of the brain 71 00:04:01,240 --> 00:04:05,120 Speaker 1: were involved in literary awareness, the capacity to think about 72 00:04:05,240 --> 00:04:08,520 Speaker 1: and find meaning in a complex text. In half of 73 00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:11,800 Speaker 1: the examples. The final line was an unexpected twist that 74 00:04:11,840 --> 00:04:14,920 Speaker 1: Philip Davis, a professor and director of the School's Institute 75 00:04:14,920 --> 00:04:19,040 Speaker 1: of Psychology, Health and Society refers to as an AHA moment. 76 00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:25,000 Speaker 1: One example, William Wordsworth's poem She Dwelt among the Untrodden Ways, 77 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:27,599 Speaker 1: about a recluse who died in seclusion, in which the 78 00:04:27,720 --> 00:04:30,000 Speaker 1: narrator drops a hint that he may have been her 79 00:04:30,080 --> 00:04:34,279 Speaker 1: unrequited lover. The subjects rated the passages on how poetic 80 00:04:34,320 --> 00:04:36,680 Speaker 1: they seemed and whether or not the last lines led 81 00:04:36,720 --> 00:04:40,160 Speaker 1: them to reappraise the meaning a measure of literary awareness. 82 00:04:40,839 --> 00:04:43,359 Speaker 1: Davis said in an email. We believe that this is 83 00:04:43,400 --> 00:04:46,200 Speaker 1: the first f m R I that examines the unfolding 84 00:04:46,200 --> 00:04:49,560 Speaker 1: effects of moving from line to line and the consequences 85 00:04:49,600 --> 00:04:52,320 Speaker 1: in terms of what we call literary awareness as compared 86 00:04:52,360 --> 00:04:56,200 Speaker 1: to more automatic and literal minded processing of meaning. The 87 00:04:56,240 --> 00:04:58,800 Speaker 1: poetic work triggered different parts of the brain related to 88 00:04:58,920 --> 00:05:02,480 Speaker 1: non automatic process thing of meaning, leading to increased lively 89 00:05:02,520 --> 00:05:06,359 Speaker 1: activation of mind and a simultaneous sense of psychological reward. 90 00:05:07,560 --> 00:05:10,479 Speaker 1: But the research also suggests that reading or listening to 91 00:05:10,520 --> 00:05:14,080 Speaker 1: poetry is useful for something besides just rousing our emotions 92 00:05:14,080 --> 00:05:17,839 Speaker 1: and stimulating our brains. I mean, coffee does that. It 93 00:05:17,960 --> 00:05:20,600 Speaker 1: seems that the same mental skills that we exercise and 94 00:05:20,680 --> 00:05:23,440 Speaker 1: struggling to understand t s. Eliott's The Love Song of 95 00:05:23,520 --> 00:05:26,599 Speaker 1: j Alfred proof Rock i e. Flexible thinking and the 96 00:05:26,640 --> 00:05:30,200 Speaker 1: ability to ponder multiple meanings also help us to navigate 97 00:05:30,279 --> 00:05:34,720 Speaker 1: unpredictable events and make choices in our everyday lives. Davis 98 00:05:34,720 --> 00:05:38,120 Speaker 1: said the calling into activation of literary awareness may have 99 00:05:38,200 --> 00:05:42,039 Speaker 1: a significant effect in challenging our default mindset. He thinks, 100 00:05:42,080 --> 00:05:44,560 Speaker 1: in other words, that if more people read poetry and 101 00:05:44,640 --> 00:05:47,760 Speaker 1: god accustomed to pondering meaning quote, it would make a 102 00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:50,919 Speaker 1: difference to their capacity to think with more alertness to excite, 103 00:05:50,960 --> 00:05:54,360 Speaker 1: surprise and change. Sounds like a good excuse to revisit 104 00:05:54,400 --> 00:05:56,120 Speaker 1: some of your favorite authors or try a few new 105 00:05:56,160 --> 00:06:03,800 Speaker 1: ones now. Today's episode is based on the article the 106 00:06:03,880 --> 00:06:07,039 Speaker 1: human brain is Hardwired for Poetry on how Stuffworks dot com, 107 00:06:07,200 --> 00:06:10,080 Speaker 1: written by Patrick J. Kaiger. Brain Stuff is production of 108 00:06:10,120 --> 00:06:12,280 Speaker 1: I Heart Radio in partnership with how stuff Works dot 109 00:06:12,320 --> 00:06:15,440 Speaker 1: Com and is produced by Tyler Clang. Four more podcasts 110 00:06:15,560 --> 00:06:17,680 Speaker 1: my heart Radio because at the I heart Radio app, 111 00:06:17,800 --> 00:06:20,560 Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.