"Your Brain on Melville."

A recent article in Upfront titled, “Your Brain on Melville,” stated that, literary fiction helps improve “social perception.” In a study, by the New School for Social Research in New York, participants read the literary fiction, pop fiction and nonfiction or nothing. According to the results, “those who read literary fiction did better at decoding facial expressions.”  Literature requires the reader to use his/her imagination, which makes the reader better at reading cues. Outside of literary fiction, this skill is helpful in reading a person’s expression.

I agree with the findings because literary fiction requires one to think more deeply then pop fiction. In schools, we analyze characters and symbols in literature. We take what’s on the page and find meaning in it. In real life, we learn to read body language. The writer Louise Erdrich, she loved science because “the researchers ‘found a way to prove true the intangible benefits of literary fiction.’” Most people find pop fiction more interesting than literary fiction makes you think more. Thus, pop fiction may seem more entertaining, but it plays off to read literary fiction.