RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Measuring narrative engagement: The heart tells the story
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 351148
DO 10.1101/351148
A1 Daniel C. Richardson
A1 Nicole K. Griffin
A1 Lara Zaki
A1 Auburn Stephenson
A1 Jiachen Yan
A1 Thomas Curry
A1 Richard Noble
A1 John Hogan
A1 Jeremy I. Skipper
A1 Joseph T. Devlin
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/13/351148.abstract
AB Stories play a fundamental role in human culture. They provide a mechanism for sharing cultural identity, imparting knowledge, revealing beliefs, reinforcing social bonds and providing entertainment that is central to all human societies. Here we investigated the extent to which the delivery medium of a story (audio or visual) affected conscious and subconscious engagement with the narrative. Although participants self-reported greater involvement for watching video relative to listening to auditory scenes, stronger physiological responses were recorded for auditory stories. Sensors placed at their wrists showed higher and more variable heart rates, greater electrodermal activity, and even higher body temperatures. We interpret these findings as physiological evidence that the stories were more cognitively and emotionally engaging when presented in an auditory format. This may be because listening to a story, rather than watching a video, is a more active process of co-creation, and that this imaginative process in the listener’s mind is detectable on the skin at their wrist.