Simulating Fiction: Individual Differences in Literature Comprehension Revealed with fMRI

TLDR

Reading literary fiction transports readers into fictional worlds and engages them emotionally and cognitively, yet the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying this process remain unclear. The study aimed to determine how individuals differ in the use of mentalizing and sensori‑motor simulation networks while listening to literary novel excerpts. Functional MRI and localizer tasks were employed to map the cortical motor and mentalizing networks in participants after they listened to the excerpts. Participants with higher anterior medial prefrontal cortex activation during mentalizing content showed lower motor cortex activity during action‑related content, and vice versa, revealing distinct neural styles of engaging with literary fiction.

Abstract

When we read literary fiction, we are transported to fictional places, and we feel and think along with the characters. Despite the importance of narrative in adult life and during development, the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying fiction comprehension are unclear. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to investigate how individuals differently employ neural networks important for understanding others’ beliefs and intentions (mentalizing), and for sensori-motor simulation while listening to excerpts from literary novels. Localizer tasks were used to localize both the cortical motor network and the mentalizing network in participants after they listened to excerpts from literary novels. Results show that participants who had high activation in anterior medial prefrontal cortex (aMPFC; part of the mentalizing network) when listening to mentalizing content of literary fiction, had lower motor cortex activity when they listened to action-related content of the story, and vice versa. This qualifies how people differ in their engagement with fiction: some people are mostly drawn into a story by mentalizing about the thoughts and beliefs of others, whereas others engage in literature by simulating more concrete events such as actions. This study provides on-line neural evidence for the existence of qualitatively different styles of moving into literary worlds, and adds to a growing body of literature showing the potential to study narrative comprehension with neuroimaging methods.