veti
2017-11-23, 10:30 PM
So, I clicked on a headline (https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fiction-triggers-poorer-reading-study-finds) in the Guardian today, and it led me into a set of thoughtful and well researched essays on how we read. Specifically, how literary "genre" affects the reading process/experience.
The blogger is writing about his own academic research. Which, to give it its due, is pretty cool.
He is interested in the age-old question of why science fiction (specifically, although to a lesser extent this applies to just about all "genres") is regarded as "inferior" to "literary fiction" (and what that means is, of course, a whole other question). The general belief is that science fiction does less to help its readers develop what's called the "theory of mind" - what can, with an acceptable degree of simplification, be called "empathy".
So he devised an experiment in which the same short story is written in four different ways: two "realistic" (set in a small-town diner), two SF (set on a remote starbase). The characters and their interactions are meant to be identical; the only differences are in a few words and phrases that describe the setting.
What he found, when he got a sample of people to read each of these stories, was that the differences in the readers' reactions were far more significant than he'd expected. People who read the SF version, consistently, not only identified (empathised) less with the characters; they also understood and retained less of the story, and believed that the writing itself was "shallower". Hence his first headline, "Science Fiction Makes You Stupid".
But reading the first essay - his first blog post - that's far from the full story. Because as well as the "theory of mind", the science-fiction reader has to contend with what he calls the "theory of world". When you read a story in a setting that purports to be the real world, you have an instinctive understanding of how all its components fit together. We know, or can imagine, how the central character looks at the middle-aged waitress, and how she responds to him, because the situation is within our everyday experience. But if you turn the central character into a "Corporal" on some far-off starbase, surrounded by aliens and androids, and make the waitress "an ensign on server duty", immediately the narrative becomes cluttered with distractions. What do these ranks mean? Where are they? What would a normal day be like? What, in a word, are these characters' expectations of one another?
Now, "Science Fiction Makes You Stupid (https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/science-fiction-makes-you-stupid/)" is clearly a clickbait headline. I don't begrudge the author that. In his shoes, I wouldn't have even tried to resist the temptation to use that headline.
Two weeks later - presumably under the onslaught of outraged SF fans - he proposes a modified headline: "Readers Who Are Stupid Enough to be Biased Against Science Fiction Read Science Fiction Stupidly (https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/science-fiction-makes-you-stupid-part-2/)."
But it seems to me that this formulation is just as problematic as the first. The Guardian's headline ("Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds") is actually more accurate - which is a pretty damning thing to say about anything.
My first difficulty is that there is nothing in the account to suggest that there exist people who don't "read science fiction stupidly". And if that is so, it's a bit rich to blame the readers for not "getting" the story. If none of the readers get it, or get it significantly less than another story - then it seems to me that the fault is most likely in the story.
More importantly, I think neither headline really takes account of the cognitive load imposed by the "theory of world" burdens in the SF story. My takeaway would be more accurately expressed as "readers only have so much mental energy to spend on a short story, and the more work you make them do in one dimension, the less they'll appreciate the other aspects". I think even the author under-rates the cognitive burden of those "purely cosmetic" scene-setting changes.
But you can't put that in a headline. And every attempt to reduce it to headline length introduces - issues. It's not just that they oversimplify a complex argument: they actively mislead you into thinking the story is going to say one thing, when that's not what it says at all.
And we wonder why clickbait is taking over the world...
The blogger is writing about his own academic research. Which, to give it its due, is pretty cool.
He is interested in the age-old question of why science fiction (specifically, although to a lesser extent this applies to just about all "genres") is regarded as "inferior" to "literary fiction" (and what that means is, of course, a whole other question). The general belief is that science fiction does less to help its readers develop what's called the "theory of mind" - what can, with an acceptable degree of simplification, be called "empathy".
So he devised an experiment in which the same short story is written in four different ways: two "realistic" (set in a small-town diner), two SF (set on a remote starbase). The characters and their interactions are meant to be identical; the only differences are in a few words and phrases that describe the setting.
What he found, when he got a sample of people to read each of these stories, was that the differences in the readers' reactions were far more significant than he'd expected. People who read the SF version, consistently, not only identified (empathised) less with the characters; they also understood and retained less of the story, and believed that the writing itself was "shallower". Hence his first headline, "Science Fiction Makes You Stupid".
But reading the first essay - his first blog post - that's far from the full story. Because as well as the "theory of mind", the science-fiction reader has to contend with what he calls the "theory of world". When you read a story in a setting that purports to be the real world, you have an instinctive understanding of how all its components fit together. We know, or can imagine, how the central character looks at the middle-aged waitress, and how she responds to him, because the situation is within our everyday experience. But if you turn the central character into a "Corporal" on some far-off starbase, surrounded by aliens and androids, and make the waitress "an ensign on server duty", immediately the narrative becomes cluttered with distractions. What do these ranks mean? Where are they? What would a normal day be like? What, in a word, are these characters' expectations of one another?
Now, "Science Fiction Makes You Stupid (https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2017/10/30/science-fiction-makes-you-stupid/)" is clearly a clickbait headline. I don't begrudge the author that. In his shoes, I wouldn't have even tried to resist the temptation to use that headline.
Two weeks later - presumably under the onslaught of outraged SF fans - he proposes a modified headline: "Readers Who Are Stupid Enough to be Biased Against Science Fiction Read Science Fiction Stupidly (https://thepatronsaintofsuperheroes.wordpress.com/2017/11/13/science-fiction-makes-you-stupid-part-2/)."
But it seems to me that this formulation is just as problematic as the first. The Guardian's headline ("Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds") is actually more accurate - which is a pretty damning thing to say about anything.
My first difficulty is that there is nothing in the account to suggest that there exist people who don't "read science fiction stupidly". And if that is so, it's a bit rich to blame the readers for not "getting" the story. If none of the readers get it, or get it significantly less than another story - then it seems to me that the fault is most likely in the story.
More importantly, I think neither headline really takes account of the cognitive load imposed by the "theory of world" burdens in the SF story. My takeaway would be more accurately expressed as "readers only have so much mental energy to spend on a short story, and the more work you make them do in one dimension, the less they'll appreciate the other aspects". I think even the author under-rates the cognitive burden of those "purely cosmetic" scene-setting changes.
But you can't put that in a headline. And every attempt to reduce it to headline length introduces - issues. It's not just that they oversimplify a complex argument: they actively mislead you into thinking the story is going to say one thing, when that's not what it says at all.
And we wonder why clickbait is taking over the world...