Books: Listening vs reading

DEBBIE JACOB

DOES listening to a book count for as much as reading one? Neuroscientists have been studying this question. On July 28, The Conversation, an online magazine that presents articles with “academic rigour and journalistic flair,” neurologists discussed reading vs listening in Do You Really Need to Read to Learn: What Neuroscience Says about Reading versus Listening.

Neurologists examine how biological factors and social experiences influence language by using MRIs and EEGs to track the underlying processes. This article says that while the goal is the same for both reading and listening to a book, processing is not the same.

“Each supports comprehension in different ways. Listening doesn’t provide all the benefits of reading, and reading doesn’t offer everything listening does. Both are important, but they are not interchangeable.”

The Conversation states that reading requires the most cognitive effort. “Your mind uses memory. It has to recognise shapes of letters, the words they make, and even the sound of those words. You have to process how the words are made, the meaning that can be construed from syntax (word order) and how all of this happens from sentences to paragraphs and entire books. Text uses visual structure – punctuation marks, paragraph breaks or bolded words to guide understanding. You can read at your own speed.”

Listening is different because there’s less personal control.

“Listening requires your brain to work at the pace of the speaker.”

Listeners must rely more on memory. Studies show we only remember about 20 per cent of what we hear.

“Speech is also a continuous stream, not neatly separated words. The brain is always playing catch-up. Here, the process of understanding requires sound determining meaning. Listeners have to understand tone because there are no visual road marks that are found in reading.”

Listening to a book becomes more difficult if the subject matter is complex or unfamiliar.

Reading also provides an easier way to move around in the text. We can backtrack and reread. In an audio book, it is more difficult because we rely on a mechanical process. On the other hand, scientists say dyslexics may have an easier time listening than reading.

Reading requires more concentration than listening. You have to sit and focus. But we listen to books like we listen to music while we’re exercising, driving in a car or cooking. Our concentration probably slips in and out more with listening. I play online scrabble, drive to the grocery store or do dishes when I’m listening to a book.

The Conversation concludes, “So, yes, reading still matters, even when listening is an option. Each activity offers something different, and they are not interchangeable.”

In a 2018 Psychology Today article by Cody Kommers entitled Why Listening to a Book Is Not the Same as Reading It, the author refers to work by Daniel Willingham, a psychologist at the University of Virginia who specialises in reading comprehension. He says both methods of learning are important, but also stresses they aren’t the same.

He points out, “The words on the page aren’t going to read themselves, which is something they literally do in an audiobook.”

Listening to a book then seems like a more passive interaction with language, much like a movie. Someone is presenting the material, your brain absorbs it and doesn’t have to interpret it as reading requires.”

Kommers believes the most significant difference between an audiobook and a written text is the presence of the narrator.

“A written text has no narrator besides the one in your head. It does its best to faithfully render the author's tone. But…in audiobooks, the narrator makes a huge difference, just as the casting makes an impact on a play (or movie). Comedian Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime wouldn’t be such a hit if it weren’t read by Noah himself doing all the accents and lending the narrative a this-was-my-life pathos. It builds in a dynamic that just doesn’t exist in the same form with written texts.”

Asking me to choose between an audiobook and written books is a Sophie’s Choice. (Read the book by William Styron). Audiobooks are important because they help us build listening skills, and it’s enjoyable to have someone read to you. Books encourage us to use our imagination and cognitive skills more; audiobooks give us greater freedom in terms of where and when we can enjoy a book.

I think you should experience written books, audiobooks, e-books, and movies – none at the expense of the other. They all complement each other. Exercise your brain for the greater good.