A new study by researchers at the University of Tokyo explores whether reading manga on paper or on a tablet changes how the brain understands and remembers stories. Participants first read the opening half of a two-part manga story either on paper or on a tablet. Later, while inside an MRI scanner, they read the second half through LCD goggles and answered questions about the story. Brain scans taken during the reading and questioning showed differences in activity depending on which medium they had just read. People who first read the opening half of the stories on a tablet took longer to answer more demanding questions that required combining information from both halves than those who first read it on paper. This research could impact educational decisions or even hardware and software related to digital reading.
For as long as e-readers have been on the market, there has been some debate about the potential benefits and drawbacks, including whether they can impact aspects of reading or comprehension. As a neuroscientist focused on language study, Professor Kuniyoshi Sakai from the Department of Basic Science has often pondered these things and was recently approached by a manga publisher in Japan to investigate the matter experimentally. Together with his team, they sought to find out how paper versus tablet reading could impact reading comprehension on a neurological level.
"We assembled a test group and gave them all a reading task, then some questions to answer," said Sakai. "Participants were given the same manga to read, a special story split into two protagonists' perspectives. The questions included simple ones and complex ones, the latter of which required comprehension of both parts of the story. But the first story was given to participants on different mediums, paper or e-readers. During questioning, we measured brain activations by using a magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scanner. This method is called a functional MRI (fMRI). The fMRI technique actually measures the amount of local blood flow in the brain reflecting neuronal activity in a particular region. We found some interesting differences in activity between the two test groups."
Sakai and his team found that participants answered questions accurately under both conditions, but those who first read the opening half of the manga on a tablet took longer to answer the more demanding questions requiring integration of information from both halves of the story. Brain scans also revealed differences in activity depending on whether participants initially read on paper or tablet. During reading of the second half inside the scanner, participants who first read on paper showed reduced activation in frontal language-related brain regions associated with linguistic and narrative integration. The findings suggest that reading on paper may allow the brain to organize story information with less effort, reducing later processing demands.
"This is the first time that a neuroscientific investigation has revealed a specific difference in brain activity between readers of either paper or screens. It's a fascinating result, but it was tricky to devise this experiment. When comparing a paper book and an electronic tablet, we cannot bring the latter device into the scanning room because the scanner is a huge magnet. So instead, participants first read the opening half of the story either on paper or on a tablet outside the scanner and later read the second half inside the scanner using LCD goggles," said Sakai. "The same results would likely be obtained for reading novels, because storylines and contextual flow are basically the same between manga, novels and other written material. One important advantage of using manga stories in our tests was that manga has visual narratives, which provide rich pictorial information that facilitates the comprehension of scenes."
While the exact reasons for the results are an ongoing matter of study, the team suggests that, at least at present, the advantage of paper might be that it provides stable spatial and tactile cues that digital devices don't. These cues may help the brain organize narrative information more effectively. But Sakai and his team have a few more ideas to investigate too.
"Using a similar method, we are now examining the effects of writing by hand or with a keyboard. This would be a natural extension of comparing paper and electronic devices," said Sakai. "The advantage of paper is not only about memory, attention and emotional engagement, but about language and thought because it involves careful reading and thinking processes."
