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CrowdScience

What’s the difference between reading and listening to books?

CrowdScience

BBC

Science, Technology

4.8985 Ratings

🗓️ 24 November 2023

⏱️ 28 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

CrowdScience listener Michael wants to know whether the brain responds differently if we listen to books instead of reading them. Do we retain information in the same way? And is there a difference between fiction and non-fiction?

Anand Jagatia finds out whether curling up with a good book is better than putting on his headphones. She is speaks to Prof Fatma Deniz from the Technical University of Berlin; Prof Naomi Baron from American University, Washington DC; Prof Patrick Nunn from the University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland and The Guesthouse Storytellers.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Jo Glanville Editor: Richard Collings Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harrison Sound engineer: Andrew Garratt

(Photo: Senior man wearing headphones listening to an audiobook. Credit: pixdeluxe/Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Take some time for yourself with soothing classical music from the mindful mix, the Science of

0:07.0

Happiness Podcast.

0:08.0

For the last 20 years I've dedicated my career to exploring the science of living a happier more meaningful life and I want

0:14.4

to share that science with you.

0:16.1

And just one thing, deep calm with Michael Mosley.

0:19.4

I want to help you tap in to your hidden relaxation response system and open the door to that

0:25.4

calmer place within. Listen on BBC Sounds. Raven created the world.

0:37.0

the world.

0:41.0

Raven was bird and man and God in equal measure.

0:50.0

Hello and

0:55.0

for this episode we're listening to a good old-fashioned story.

1:00.0

He created the sun. He created the sun, the moon and the stars, he created the sky, and he created the earth, and he created the vast seas.

1:15.3

This one is an Inuit myth about creation and it's being told by Wendy at a local storytelling

1:21.2

event in a town called New Haven on the south coast of England,

1:24.8

where people gather together and take it in turns to share tales that they like,

1:29.4

not from a book, but from memory, with some performance and improvisation too.

1:35.0

Humans have told stories to each other probably ever since we could talk and yet meeting

1:39.9

up for a storytelling event isn't something that many people do. Most of us are more likely to

1:45.3

listen to a story as an audio book or a podcast or read one in a book. And so he took his kayak and he paddled it out to sea.

1:55.0

Today on crowd science we're exploring the difference between these ways of engaging with stories. I hope you're sitting comfortably.

2:04.6

Good. Then let's meet this week's listener. My name's Michael from Sydney. I asked a friend what's the difference between listening to an audio book or reading the book yourself?

2:20.0

He thought that there was a difference and you can't say you've read a book if you've

...

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