Community Newspapers: Tomorrow has arrived - Videos

Screen Reading v. Paper Surface Reading.
Dan Bloom brings news that MRI brain imaging lab is to study differences in screen-reading, paper-surface reading.

Dan is a freelance writer based in Taiwan. His hunch that reading on paper is superior in terms of brain chemistry to reading off screens has yet to be proven or dismissed, but he hopes future reserach using fMRi and PET scans
will help explain the differences in terms of neuroscience.

Dr Ellen Marker studies reading. But not off screens or in
paper books. Her research is done in a Quincy laboratory.

The pioneering neuroscientist analyzes brains in their most enthusiastic reading state, hoping to understand the differences between reading off screens and reading on paper surfaces.

Like me, Dr Marker feels that her studies will show reading on paper is superior to reading off screens in terms of
retention, processing, analysis and critical thinking.

But first, let’s see what the scans will be like.

Dr Marker asks me to put myself into an fMRI machine so she and his team can study which areas of the brain are activated by reading text on paper compared to reading the same text on a computer screen or a Kindle e-reader.

And this is why I’m here. Today I will donate my brain scans to science.

Among the things that Market has discovered so far is that reading on paper might be something we as a civilization should not ever give up.

“Even though reading on screens is useful and convenient, and I do it all the time, I feel that reading on paper is something we should never cede to the digital revolution,” Marker, 43, says. “We need both.”

On the day I climb into the brain imaging cocoon, I am thinking about what it all might mean. But since I am just a guinea pig and not a scientist, I will have to wait for the results.

I enter a sterile lab, and Marker and her four associates greet me, all in white lab coats.

As they hand me my a pale blue gown to change into, I have
second thoughts — “How can I read while lying down horizontally my back, not my preferred reading mode?” — but decide to push myself.

Science needs me!

The scientists load me into the machine and I’m off.

Next step: They strap my head down, because any movement distorts the brain imaging. Ever try to read a book without facial movements?

I feel as if I’m being shoved into the middle of a toilet paper roll, the walls so close my eyelashes almost graze them.

Then I hear a voice through the earphones I’m wearing. It’s Dr Marker.

“You okay in there?” she asks.

Graduate student Dan Smith, 52, tells me to relax before
running around to join the other scientists in the control room.

With the invention of the fMRI only 20 years ago, along came the ability to look at brain activity. Marker says that by understanding a function as gigantic as reading, how the reading brain does its magic dance, a response that hijacks all of one’s attention, she might also learn how reading on screens could be inferior to reading on paper.

“The more we understand how the brain works,” she says, “the more we will be able to help people modulate its activity.”

As the machine switches on, it sounds like a jackhammer. I follow Marker’s instructions and as I do, the group watches my brain on their computer monitors. I will read passages from a novel, and then later I will read the same passages on a Kindle. I just hope the Kindle does not blow up inside the brain scan machine!

Research and teaching take up most of Marker’s time, but when she has a spare moment, she thinks about what all this might mean for the future of humankind.

During my first hour in the fMRI machine, researchers map my brain’s reading paths to find out which parts correlate to which regions of the brain.

“You have 10 minutes,” Marker says through my earphones near the end of our test. “Keep reading.”

On the other side of the glass pane, the scientists can see my brain lighting up as I read on paper and as I read on a screen. Regions light up in different ways, Marker says.

Komisaruk discusses what her research could do for the future of humankind. “We need to know if reading on screens is going to be good if it replaces all our reading on paper.”

Marker’s lab has paid me a $100 subject fee, so I want to give them their money’s worth.

After all, it’s not easy to get funding for this stuff — Marker
says she spends at least half of her time applying for grants.

“There’s no premium on studying paper reading modes versus
screen-reading modes in this society,” she tells me as Smith murmurs, “What do you expect? The gadgetheads want to take over.”

When the tests are over, Marker tells me the data takes two hours to convert, but it can take much longer to make sense of it.

“We’ll be at this for a while,” she says.

One of the biggest conundrums turns out to be a nagging
question for all mankind: What if reading on screens is not good for retention of data, emotional connections and critical thinking skills?

Marker begins slipping more and more into her thoughts. “Neurons, little bags of chemicals, create
awareness,” he says, “but how? How does the brain read?
What is reading, really?”

I see that at the heart of all her research, there is a
philosopher trying not only to understand reading, but also figure out the nuts and bolts that make up the reading brain.

“It’s the hard question I want to answer,” she says. “What is
the reading brain really all about?

“I find that,” she adds, “and I find the Nobel Prize.”

Written by Dan Bloom - Published on February 7, 2012 12:12 PM | Permalink