The effects of reading material on social and non-social cognition

Black, Jessica E.; Barnes, Jennifer L.

doi:10.1016/j.poetic.2015.07.001

Cited by 88 publications

(123 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…Their study [ 17 ] consisted of five experiments in which the authors evaluated the effects of reading literary fiction compared to reading nonfiction (Experiment 1) and popular fiction (Experiments 2–5) on mentalizing skills using three different measuresThis study [ 17 ] showed that only reading literary fiction affected mentalizing. Recently, a study has extended Kidd and Castano’ s results [ 16 ]. The authors [ 16 ] evaluated the effects of reading on both social and non-social cognition.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Recently, a study has extended Kidd and Castano’ s results [ 16 ]. The authors [ 16 ] evaluated the effects of reading on both social and non-social cognition. In this study [ 16 ] the participants read two literary short stories and two nonfiction articles: one of the texts used in each condition was taken directly from Kidd and Castano’ s materials [ 17 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

“…Their findings underscore the role that reading can play in supporting children’s development of emotional and social skills [ 13 , 14 ]. Moreover, reading fiction also seems to improve mentalizing among adults[ 15 , 16 ]. Kidd and Castano [ 17 ] demonstrated that reading literary fiction leads to better performance on assessments of mentalizing compared to reading nonfiction, popular fiction, or nothing at all.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The authors [ 16 ] evaluated the effects of reading on both social and non-social cognition. In this study [ 16 ] the participants read two literary short stories and two nonfiction articles: one of the texts used in each condition was taken directly from Kidd and Castano’ s materials [ 17 ]. Moreover, the authors [ 16 ] used only two tests: the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Task as a mentalizing measure [ 18 ] and the Intuitive Physics Test [ 19 ] as a non-social measure.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Use of “Literary Fiction” to Promote Mentalizing Ability

2016

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Empathy is a multidimensional process that incorporates both mentalizing and emotional sharing dimensions. Empathic competencies are important for creating interpersonal relationships with other people and developing adequate social behaviour. The lack of these social components also leads to isolation and exclusion in healthy populations. However, few studies have investigated how to improve these social skills. In a recent study, Kidd and Castano (2013) found that reading literary fiction increases mentalizing ability and may change how people think about other people’s emotions and mental states. The aim of our study was to evaluate the effects of reading literary fiction, compared to nonfiction and science fiction, on empathic abilities. Compared to previous studies, we used a larger variety of empathy measures and utilized a pre and post-test design. In all, 214 healthy participants were randomly assigned to read a book representative of one of three literary genres (literary fiction, nonfiction, science fiction). Participants were assessed before and after the reading phase using mentalizing and emotional sharing tests, according to Zaki and Ochsner’ s (2012) model. Comparisons of sociodemographic, mentalizing, and emotional sharing variables across conditions were conducted using ANOVA. Our results showed that after the reading phase, the literary fiction group showed improvement in mentalizing abilities, but there was no discernible effect on emotional sharing abilities. Our study showed that the reading processes can promote mentalizing abilities. These results may set important goals for future low-cost rehabilitation protocols for several disorders in which the mentalizing deficit is considered central to the disease, such as Autism Spectrum Disorders and Schizophrenia.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 94%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Use of “Literary Fiction” to Promote Mentalizing Ability

2016

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“…We selected only experimental studies that compared reading literary fiction to reading popular fiction and that used the RMET as outcome variable. Consequently, studies like Black and Barnes (2015), Pino and Mazza (2016) and Experiment 1 of Samur et al (2017) were excluded. The studies included in the meta-analysis can be found in Table 3.…”

Section: Exploratory Analyses Non-adjusted Tom Variablesmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effect of reading a short passage of literary fiction on Theory of Mind: A replication of Kidd and Castano (2013)

Kuijk¹,

Verkoeijen²,

Dijkstra³

et al. 2018

Preprint

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The results reported by Kidd and Castano (2013) indicated that reading a short passage of literary fiction improves theory of mind (ToM) relative to reading popular fiction. However, when we entered Kidd and Castano's results in a p-curve analysis, it turned out that the evidential value of their findings is low. It is good practice to back up a p-curve analysis of a single paper with an adequately powered direct replication of at least one of the studies in the p-curve analysis. Therefore, we conducted a direct replication of the literary fiction condition and the popular fiction condition from Kidd and Castano's Experiment 5 to scrutinize the effect of reading literary fiction on ToM. The results of this replication were largely consistent with Kidd and Castano's original findings. Furthermore, we conducted a small-scale meta-analysis on the findings of the present study, those of Kidd and Castano and those reported in other published direct replications. The meta-analytic effect of reading literary fiction on ToM was small and non-significant but there was considerable heterogeneity between the included studies. The results of the present study and of the small-scale meta-analysis are discussed in the light of reading-times exclusion criteria as well as reliability and validity of ToM measures.

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The Key Practice, Building and Sharing Stories and Social Understandings: The Intrinsic Value of Narrative

Deane

Somasundaran

Lawless

et al. 2019

ETS Research Report Series

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One of the major goals of the English Language Arts is to teach students to read, understand, and write narratives. This report examines the ways in which the skills that support narrative develop during the school years, outlines a model of narrative as a “key practice” in which the ability to model social situations supports narrative understanding, and feeds into the ability to use stories to reflect about stories and the classes of social situations they represent. Narrative is important precisely because it helps people develop their understanding of the social world and reason about their place in it. Assessments of narrative reading and writing need to take this broader construct into account.

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The effects of reading material on social and non-social cognition

Cited by 88 publications

References 39 publications

The Use of “Literary Fiction” to Promote Mentalizing Ability

The Use of “Literary Fiction” to Promote Mentalizing Ability

The effect of reading a short passage of literary fiction on Theory of Mind: A replication of Kidd and Castano (2013)

The Key Practice, Building and Sharing Stories and Social Understandings: The Intrinsic Value of Narrative

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