News

Listeners immerse themselves in audiobooks in very different ways – and this shows in the brain

In the future, a new brain research method could be used to study creativity
Tutkimuksessa arvioitiin, miten lähellä tai kaukana koehenkilöiden tuottamat sanalistaukset olivat merkityksen perusteella toisistaan. Kuva: Iiro Jääskeläinen.
estimations were made on how far the research subjects’ word lists were from each other. estimations were made on how far the research subjects’ word lists were from each other.

Researchers at Aalto University analysed how listeners immerse themselves in audiobooks by using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) and words that the story brings to mind. The study indicated that word lists resembling each other also predicted similarities in brain function.

In the study, 16 people listened to an audiobook written by Professor Iiro Jääskeläinen inside an fMRI device. After this, the same people listened to the story again in sections lasting between 3 and 5 seconds, and listed the words that came to their mind while they were listening.

For example, the following line in the story ‘went towards the bedroom door’ may, to some people, bring to mind a door handle, walking and a bedroom, while another person may recall a television, home and their favourite TV series. The visual images may also be different.

‘Instead of focusing on individual statements, the study examined immersion, or similarity in brain activity, in relation to the entire story’, Jääskeläinen says.

Word lists produced by the research subjects were assessed using a semantic tree and latent semantic analysis. In a semantic tree, dots represent concepts and arcs portray the relationships between concepts. For example, the words ‘dog’, ‘canine’ and ‘spaniel’ are close to each other in the tree, while ‘dog’ and ‘submarine’ are far apart. On the basis of this, estimations were made on how far the research subjects’ word lists were from each other.

Scientists discovered that similar words in the list predicted similarities in the test subjects’ brain activity, particularly in the area between the temporal and parietal lobe, which is important in language processing, and the visual cortex.

‘In the future, it will be interesting to see if this is caused by, for instance, cultural or personality differences’, Iiro Jääskeläinen says.

In meantime, the new method has various potential research applications: such as measuring creativity and its neural basis; or how people with different cultural backgrounds interpret the world in different ways.

Further information:

Full Article: Inferior parietal lobule and early visual areas support elicitation of individualized meanings during narrative listening

Iiro Jääskeläinen
Professor
Aalto University
[email protected]
Phone: 050 560 9503

  • Published:
  • Updated:

Read more news

image of a wooden pillar from little finlandia and the text time out
Research & Art Published:

Aalto University shakes up construction practices at the New European Bauhaus Festival in Brussels

The exhibition Time Out! will be on show in Brussels from 9 to 13 April 2024 as part of the NEB Festival.
Two of the awardees and their robotic arm all holding colorful mugs. Aalto Open Science Award, Honorary mention.
Awards and Recognition, Research & Art Published:

Aalto Open Science Award third place awardee 2023 – Intelligent Robotics Research Group with the Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects project

We interviewed the Intelligent Robotics Research Group with the Robotic Manipulation of Deformable Objects project, 3rd place awardees of the first Aalto Open Science Award.
Five Aalto University students around a table
Research & Art Published:

Read the Qual+ Newsletter

We are excited to welcome you to the second Qual+ Newsletter and continue bringing you new ways of looking at methods within management studies.
Picture of leaves in water.
Press releases Published:

Graduate Sustainability Competencies and Influence in the Workplace – Aalto University's Latest Research

Aalto University's Meeri Karvinen successfully defends her doctoral dissertation, February 2024.