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Comment by galois198 | Hacker News Reader

> One thing I am wondering though is if there is a certain types of literature that the brains reacts in a more positive or less than observation way. For example, does our brain engage more when we’re reading a technical literature review moreso than if it was a novel?

I've often wondered this also. It would be interesting to quantitatively determine the effects of reading fiction versus non-fiction material on the mind.

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Intuitively it would make sense to me that they both provide advantages to the mind. Certainly, being able to parse dense technical literature is impressive, but the ability to use the imagination and think creatively would probably use different parts of the mind, and I'd think the "best" minds could do both.

Wasn't it said that Einstein kind of came up with the whole idea about relativity based on the imagined idea of "riding" a beam of light or something like that?

I highly recommend Richard Feynman's talk [0] on imagining physics from the BBC series "Fun to Imagine":

"In the case of science, I think that one of the things that make it difficult is that it takes a lot of imagination. It's very hard to imagine all the crazy things that things really are like."

[0]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zZbX_9ru9U

I believe any current studies focused mostly on brain engagements on screen vs book. We know that there are studies that indicate that reading fiction engages the brain in such a way that it is speculated a given reader literally experiences the fiction as if it were real life.

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