--- title: "If You Read a Lot of Fiction, Scientists Have Very Good News About Your Brain" description: "Scientists have begun to study how reading fiction affects your brain. Spoiler alert: the news is very good" date: "2024-05-10" modified: "2024-05-10" authors: - name: "Noor Al-Sibai" job_title: "Senior Staff Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/nooralsibai" url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/reading-fiction-brain-cognitive-abilities" categories: - "Brain" - "Health & Medicine" tags: - "books" - "brains" - "Cognition" - "fiction" --- # If You Read a Lot of Fiction, Scientists Have Very Good News About Your Brain ![Scientists have begun to study how reading fiction affects your brain. Spoiler alert: the news is very good]() *\Image: Getty / Futurism\* It's a big day for bookworms: scientists studying how reading fiction affects your brain say the news is very good. In an [interview with *PsyPost*](), Lena Wimmer, a postdoctoral researcher at Germany's Maximilian University, explained that she and her colleagues wanted to lay the groundwork for quantitative studies about fiction's effect on thinking — and found, to their delight, that reading it is better for you than some detractors suggest. "Over the last decades, scholars from several disciplines have claimed far-reaching benefits — but also potential disadvantages — of reading fiction for cognition in the real world," she told the website. "I wanted to get an objective, quantitative overview of the relevant empirical evidence in order to decide whether any of these assumptions is supported by empirical studies." To figure out [how reading fiction affects the brain](), Wimmer and her co-researchers conducted two meta-analyses. The first, as the German psychological researchers [explain in the *Journal of Experimental Psychology: General*](), looked into the results of a study that measured cognitive function for people who read various types of fiction. The other took data from a longitudinal study that correlated lifelong fiction readership with cognitive outcomes ranging from abstract thinking and reasoning skills to the ability to empathize with others. In the first meta-analysis, which included data from 70 studies and more than 11,000 participants, the researchers found that reading fiction had a small but "statistically significant" positive effect on subjects' cognition. In particular, the people in that cohort who read more fiction seemed to better empathize with others and understand the way they thought, *PsyPost* explains. That analysis also found that reading fiction was more impactful compared to either doing nothing or watching fiction on a screen than it was when held up against reading nonfiction. The second meta-analysis, which included 114 studies and more than 30,000 participants, found an even more substantial positive correlation between reading fiction and cognitive abilities, especially when it came to verbal skills, reasoning, abstract thinking, and problem-solving. Like with the first analysis, the researchers found a general trend towards better emotional cognitive abilities like empathizing, though that correlation wasn't as pronounced. Overall, Wimmer said, both meta-analyses demonstrated similar trends: "That people who read a lot of fiction have better cognitive skills than people who read little or no fiction." "These benefits are small in size across various cognitive skills, but of medium size for verbal and general cognitive abilities," she told *PsyPost*. "Importantly, there is a stronger association between reading fiction and cognitive skills than between reading nonfiction and those skills." By no means a smoking gun, this research introduces a framework for further study into how different types of reading habits affect our brains — but for now, let's just say that the fiction section wins this round. **More on thinking:** [*Researchers Find That Higher Intelligence Is Correlated With Left-Wing Beliefs*]() ## Author At Futurism, I've often been drawn to unpacking the narratives that underlie technological, scientific and medical progress, with a special interest in areas of conflict and ambiguity that end up setting agendas and steering the fates of both elites and the hoi polloi. I'm a committed generalist, but I often find myself returning to work involving NASA and the private space sector, the effects of AI on media and society, and the mechanics of the pharmaceutical industry, with a specific focus on the spread of GLP-1 drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy. Prior to Futurism, I worked for publications ranging from Media Matters and Truthdig to Raw Story and Bustle. I'm also the author of "Myspace Scene Queens," a 2024 title in Instar Books' acclaimed "Remember the Internet" series. My work at Futurism has been cited by outlets including the New Yorker, Slate, Nieman Lab, the Verge, the MIT Technology Review, the Sunday Times, and the Daily Beast. I grew up in North Carolina, attended the University of North Carolina at Asheville, and now live in Brooklyn, New York. In my free time, I'm an avid reader and music fan; you can probably find me at a local poetry reading, concert, underground rave, or DJ set. I'm the proud parent of an ineffable orange cat named Mee-Mow. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()