Читать книгу Figure It Out - Stephen P. Anderson - Страница 59

As you’d expect, a number of fMRI studies have looked at brain activity in response to different kinds of narratives. What these studies reveal is that stories engage more parts of the brain. If we state facts in neutral terms, only a few areas of the brain—those typically associated with language processing— light up. When we wrap the facts in a narrative and use evocative words, many more parts of the brain light up.¹⁷

Accordingly, the more active the brain is (that is, the more parts of the brain being activated), the more we are engaged in the moment and likely to find that thing memorable. And if the story is at all emotional, we’re even more likely to recall these events later. This goes a long way toward explaining why narratives get our attention. I can state a fact, that “snakes are venomous,” but if instead I describe how “a snakebite is like fire coursing through your veins, and I should know, because once upon a time, while visiting my aunt in New York we took a trip to the Statue of Liberty, where....” Your brain can’t help but pay attention. The story and the metaphors invoke all of these associated sensory images. Sticking to the facts of a thing means fewer areas of the brain are active, while engaging more areas of the brain seems to correlate—the current belief—with attention. This alone is a reason to include stories in a book about understanding: to the extent that a narrative can grab and hold a person’s attention, and then help them—by association—make complex information accessible (via the lens of the narrative), that is powerful. This should also lend some scientific credence to the writer’s mantra of “show, don’t tell.”