The article detailing these findings can be found in Time Magazine here. Again, she found no significant difference between the two forms but interestingly did note that there is a difference in assimilation of information between paper books and screen texts: The fact that printed text is anchored to a specific location on a page also seems to help people remember it better than screen-based narrative she extrapolates further: that like digital screens, audiobooks deny users the spatial clues they would use whilst reading from a printed text. Beth Rogowsky, an associate professor at The Bloomberg University of Pennsylvania, was in the cheating camp and so decided to do some research. The word ‘cheating’ is very commonly used when audiobooks are being discussed. Thus at that level there is no difference in the way a book is assimilated – reading and listening stimulate the same part of the brain. They discovered that the words tend to activate the same brain regions with the same intensity, regardless of input. In an experiment in Discover, the author Jennifer Walter cites evidence from a study at Gallant Lab, where they mapped out the brain of readers and listeners. He concludes that “ At the end of the day, time spent contemplating new ideas and experiencing new worlds is what matters“, and he feels that one isn’t necessarily superior to the other. On the other he says that with audiobooks there are actually three elements – audiobook, listener and narrator – and the narrator can of course make a huge difference to the overall experience. On the one hand he flags that when you read a book there is a symbiosis between the book and the reader. Further, he notes, if there is a difficult text, then it needs to be visually computed (you wouldn’t listen to a mathematical formula, for example, you actually need the visuals). Listening does not require that of you and the story will move forward even if your mind and imagination wander off.
He goes on to clarify that for the story to move forward in a book, the reader actively has to turn the page and engage. Being occupied by multiple stimuli – having my ears plugged by words and my eyes firmly on my footfall and surrounding countryside – I have found Covid walks once again have become a little more rounded.Ĭody Kommers in Psychology Today (10/12/18) states: The critical difference, for me, between reading and listening is that reading is something you do, where listening is something that happens to you. Reading is an act of engagement. The walks I do are repetitive, the seasons and the weather of course make each walk unique but somehow the familiarity can slightly dull the pleasure. In this article I highlight some of the benefits, which perhaps aren’t at first evident.ĭuring the Coronavirus pandemic I have discovered the absolute pleasure of being hooked up to my earbuds, listening to a narrator feeding me with a book.
To be honest I am amazed sometimes by the vehement views of those who believe audiobooks are vastly inferior. Is listening to an audiobook the same as reading a book? Is it “cheating”? It is certainly a divisive question and it is one I have seen repeated over and over on various Social Media threads. I belong to various Facebook groups and invariably, every couple of weeks or so, a similar question is posed. Is listening to an audiobook the same as reading a book? Is it “cheating”?
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