A team of scientists from Liverpool claim that they have used brain scans to investigate what happens inside a person's brain when they read works by Shakespeare and Wordsworth. They have concluded that these authors can be called brain boosters.
Experts argue that the texts written by these two authors are more beneficial to a person's psychological well-being than the self-help books currently available on the market.
As they explain, this is due to the fact that the language and patterns used by both Shakespeare and Wordsworth are quite complex and even intricate.
This means that the human brain has to actually make an effort to understand what it is reading.
English professor Philip Davis , who took part in this research, drew attention to the fact in a publication in the Daily Mail that, “Serious literature gives the brain a boost.”
Furthermore, “Research shows that the power of literature can shift mental pathways, creating new thoughts, patterns, and connections.”
Professor Philip Davis made it clear that Shakespeare, Wordsworth and other writers similar to them can only be read by people with cognitive and emotional abilities and understand the texts in their original form and not in modern and simplistic versions, softpedia.
Thus, tests carried out on 30 volunteers who agreed to take part in this study showed that the levels of electrical activity in their brains increased significantly when they read the most "difficult" versions of these authors' prose.
“This is an argument for serious language, serious literature and serious human situations, rather than self-help books or easy books that claim to reinforce predictable views and conventional self-images,” said Professor Philip Davis, commenting on the study.
