This talk discusses new work in cognitive approaches to literature, the neuroscience of narrative, and the history of mind. I focus on a unique cross-disciplinary experiment that teamed scholars in the humanities, radiology, and neuroscience to explore the evolving neural networks involved in attention and reading in the brain. Our study used neuroscientific tools to explore the cognitive dynamics involved in reading a literary work—here, a novel by Jane Austen—with different levels of attention. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, we analyzed complex changes in brain activity as PhDs in literature read a chapter of Mansfield Park with two styles of attention: close reading (or, literary analysis) and pleasure reading.
The study’s early results suggest that such re-focusing in reading is far from subtle. Scans demonstrate dramatic and unexpected increases in blood flow to regions of the brain far beyond those responsible for "executive functions,” suggesting that how we read may be as important as what we read. Linking this fMRI study of attention and my research on the literary history of distraction, I suggest that research crossing the supposedly “unbridgeable divide” between humanities and sciences is in fact central to advancing our understanding of mind and brain. For my peers actively researching in cognitive science, I also propose that understanding attention's history is crucial, revealing the Enlightenment roots of a series of key debates over focus that continue to shape modern neuroscientific studies. Finally, and most importantly, I suggest that advancing the new field of narrative neuroscience will involve a still closer alliance between narratology, digital humanities, and cognitive science, working to track narrative patterns in order to provide a real-time view of the brain as we engage with a complex work of literature.
