- For me, stories, narratives are such a fundamental aspect
of what it means to be human.
That understanding why we tell stories,
how we tell stories and what it actually does to us
both psychologically and physically is really fundamental
to understanding what it means to be human.
(upbeat music)
- [Narrator] The human thirst for storytelling
has remained ever present throughout the ages,
but do we respond differently
to different forms of storytelling?
We often think of reading as being the most authentic way
to absorb a story,
but actually writing is less than 6,000 years old,
whilst the tradition of oral storytelling
goes back much further.
Does this mean that we engage differently
with listening and reading?
The emotional changes we feel as we engage
with the story could be measured in our physiology.
Things like our heart rate and body temperature.
Studies which track these physiological indicators
have found that an individual's particular response
to a text is similar
whether they've listened to it or read it.
However, interestingly, these responses will vary
from one person to another.
- So, individuals respond to narratives very differently
because they depend on how it relates
to your personal history, right?
What are the experiences that you've had in your life
that make you feel a certain empathy
with the kind the character's going through?
- [Narrator] So that's reading and listening,
but what about watching?
Joseph ran an experiment in cinemas
in which he measured the reactions
of audiences watching Aladdin.
Again, he saw the audience members physiology changed
in response to the story,
but this time the changes were the same across the viewers.
The audience members were emotionally in sync
with each other.
- When you're watching a video,
the audience member's heart rates start to synchronize,
particularly, during these really engaging emotional scenes.
So that is literally, people's hearts start
to beat together.
And that's true for video, but it's not true for audio,
because the experience is more similar with the video.
We're all watching exactly the same stimulus.
We're all hearing the same soundtrack at the same time.
(gentle music)
- [Narrator] One different study did MRI scans
on viewers watching The Good, the Bad and the Ugly,
and found that as much as 70% of their cerebral cortices
was synchronized at any given time.
Joseph ran another experiment to dig a bit deeper
into the way audiences process,
audible and visual information.
- So we have participants come into the lab
and they would be fitted with a biometric measuring device
that measures your heart rate.
- [Narrator] Participants engaged with individuals scenes
from stories.
Once in film form and once as an audio book.
- There were stories like Game of Thrones,
Girl on a Train, Great Expectations.
What was really interesting
was consciously people preferred the videos.
They said that they paid more attention.
They could empathize with the characters more.
They felt like they were more present in the scenes.
But, when you look at their physiology,
you can see that their heart rates were actually higher
by two beats a minute, which is a lot,
when were listening to the audio books
relative to watching the videos.
That is a very strong emotional response.
We anticipated that we'd be able to see a difference
in terms of the physiology.
We'd never expected it would be as clear as this,
to be totally honest.
People are more co-creating the material
when they're listening to it.
That is, they're much more imaginative.
Like they have to create these scenes in their head.
They have to imagine the dialogue.
They have to put themselves in this scenario.
Whereas, when they're watching a video,
they can be a little bit more passive about it
because the director and the producer
have already created this visual experience
and put it out there for them.
So you can just sort of take it in,
as opposed to generating it yourself.
And that active imagination
is what causes a larger emotional response.
- [Narrator] Want to know how you respond
to different forms of storytelling?
There's a simple experiment you can do at home.
Next time you're reading a book
watching a film or listening to a story,
grab your Fitbit or whatever you use to measure heart rate.
After 15 minutes of watching, reading, or listening,
have a look at your heart rate and see how it's changed.
You'll be amazed.
It's like you're exercising
from the comfort of your sofa,
well, almost.
(upbeat music)