Improving Social Cognition through Prolonged Engagement with Narrative Fiction

Datum

23.05.2019

Zeit

17:00 - 17:30

Sprecher

M. Sc. Brennan McDonald

Zugehörigkeit

TUD, Chair of Clinical Psychology and Behavioural Neuroscience

Serie

TUD NIC Kolloquium

Sprache

en

Hauptthema

Psychologie

Host

NIC

Beschreibung

Storytelling is a human universal. From oral traditions to books, theatre and TV shows we actively seek out narratives about others. Recent psychological evidence has begun to suggest that short-term engagement with narrative fiction transiently primes measures of social cognition. Moreover, individuals who regularly read fiction perform better than those who primarily read non-fiction in social cognition tasks. However, it remains unknown if prolonged reading of narrative fiction is able to causally influence people's social cognitive abilities. The proposed project will examine this issue by assigning participants to either a fiction or non-fiction group during a 12 week 'Book Club' (reading a 100 page text per week), with functional imaging and measures of Theory of Mind, Empathy and Prosocial Giving taken at the beginning and end of the 12 week period.

Letztmalig verändert: 17.05.2019, 12:28:33