Analysis Of Annie Murphy's Article, Your Brain On Fiction

Is it possible to learn from a reality that is not real? A person has an experience that is not real, but believes it to be real. Can that person reach the same conclusions and learn the same lessons from that false experience as from an equivalent real experience? Does the human mind perceive false realities any differently compared to the true reality lived out every day? Even though a moment in time or a series of events may be imagined or made up, people learn lessons and react to these phenomena in ways that are very similar to how they would react if the events actually occurred. Most people have had the experience of being awakened in the middle of the night from a dream that they thought was real. Despite the fact that the dream is not reality, it still affects the mind in real ways and it can still provide lessons much like a real life experience does. In an article for
the New York Times, Annie Murphy Paul writes about the brain scans of people who were exposed to colorful metaphors and other writing styles seen in novels. These brain scans provided interesting insight into how the mind perceives non-reality. In the article, Your Brain on Fiction, Annie Murphy begins by discussing how the human brain interprets written words.
She describes areas of the brain, such as Broca’s and Wernicke’s that are responsible for interpreting language. Additionally, she explores how narratives stimulate other areas of the brain not traditionally associated with language recognition. The research Murphy discusses in her article points out that metaphors were able to engage the sensory regions of the brain, whereas normal, less colorful, phrases did not. The brain instead treated the less colorful phrases as nothing more than mere words. Murphy also writes that, “words describing motion also stimulate regions of the brain distinct from language-processing areas.” (Murphy Paul, 2). Scans of the brains of subjects involved in the research revealed that words dealing with actions fired up activity in the brain’s motor cortex, the area in charge of the movement of the body. From the research that was done it becomes clear that the brain does not perceive language as merely language, but something more
tangible. In her article Murphy asserts that, “the brain, it seems, does not make much of a distinction between reading about an experiences and encountering it in real life; in each case, the same neurological regions are stimulated.” (Murphy Paul, 2). For this reason, the novel provides a form of false reality in which many people engage in, and is written in such a way that it stimulates various sectors of the human brain. From this article, and the research it is based upon, it would appear that the stories, words, characters, actions, and situations in novels affect the mind in much the same way real life does. If the brain responds to these fictitious stories and characters in the same way it responds to real life social situations, then what is the difference between a false reality and the one perceived to be real? Novels can invoke feelings of happiness, sadness and can even provide a compass regarding questions of morality or social situations. Despite the fact that these books could be complete fiction, they still make people think and feel in a specific way and possibly convey the same outcomes of thought as a personal, real life, experience. Michael Clune, in an article for the Stanford University Press, also addresses the idea of whether or not perceived life is different than real life. In the article, Writing Against Time, Clune says, “our experience of a description of a house, person, or landscape in a novel or poem, and our experience of an actual house, person, or landscape are not essentially different.” (Clune, 1). The article goes on to say the way people relate to literary characters is much the same as the way people relate to each other in social situations. If the brain processes these imagined scenarios in a similar fashion to how it processes real person to person exchanges, then the idea that false realities can provide experiences comparable to a ‘real’ reality gains more traction. Clune also brings to attention three main differences between fictional, literary experiences and real life experiences. The three differences are: the experiences require different types of interpretation, the actions are not usually the same, and that everyday life may not be as clear or as vivid as it seems in literary works. While these differences are all barriers to experiencing these stories as real, they do not prevent the thoughts and lessons from reaching the mind of the reader and thus seeming real in their own way. Clune highlights a thunderstorm as an example; the way one experiences the wet, the cold, and the sound of an actual thunderstorm is going to be different than the feeling one gets reading a detailed description of a thunderstorm from the comfort of their own dry home. However to the brain, the images brought forth and the meaning of the thunderstorm remain the same regardless of the fact that it may have been read instead of experienced. Just as dreams may seem real, novels, art, and fiction can seem real as well. The mind processes these mediums in a similar fashion to the way it processes real life. The fictional realities brought forth through art, and the images it creates, are in fact no less real than the reality people live everyday. The fact that these realities are not real does not prevent the messages they carry from being transmitted and learned much like lessons are learned from actual reality. Annie Murphy and Michael Clune, in their articles, present as fact that the brain responds to art, in particular written art, in many of the same ways it responds to actual situations. These articles illustrate that just because an event may not be ‘real’ doesn’t mean it can’t cause the same effect as actual event. Many people can reach the same conclusions and learn the same lessons from a false reality as from actual reality.