Can fiction stories make us more empathetic?
Tuesday, August 12, 2014 - 13:30
in Psychology & Sociology
Exposure to narrative fiction may improve our ability to understand what other people are thinking or feeling, a researcher reports. Many stories are about people -- their mental states, their relationships. The researcher explains that we understand stories using basic cognitive functions, and there is not a special module in the brain that allows us to do this. Understanding stories is similar to the way we understand the real world.