Science fiction makes poorer readers

[Randy M.]

Just a thought: This wasn't and isn't about science fiction. It's about the perception of science fiction.

By the way, Soulsinging, which discussion? What'd I miss?

Whoops! Nevermind. Found it and off to review.


Randy M.

 

[paeng]

“Converting the text’s world to science fiction dramatically reduced perceptions of literary quality, despite the fact participants were reading the same story in terms of plot and character relationships,” they write. “In comparison to narrative realism readers, science fiction readers reported lower transportation, experience taking, and empathy. Science fiction readers also reported exerting greater effort to understand the world of the story, but less effort to understand the minds of the characters. Science fiction readers scored lower in comprehension, generally, and in the subcategories of theory of mind, world, and plot.”

Readers of the science fiction story “appear to have expected an overall simpler story to comprehend, an expectation that overrode the actual qualities of the story itself”, so “the science fiction setting triggered poorer overall reading”.

That is, the sci-fi setting led to expectations of a simpler story, which in turn reinforced reading habits.

 

[Danny McG]

Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds

A three year old article https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fiction-triggers-poorer-reading-study-finds

www.sffchronicles.com

 

[tinkerdan]

Oh @Danny McG boy,now you've gone an done it.
Created the infinite loop.

 

[M. Robert Gibson]

Science fiction triggers 'poorer reading', study finds

A three year old article https://www.theguardian.com/books/2017/nov/23/science-fiction-triggers-poorer-reading-study-finds

www.sffchronicles.com

In my defence, I am extremely lazy and didn't bother searching to check if the link had already been posted

 

[MikeAnderson]

If any of these 'scientists" have Daniel Steele on their reading lists, they should be lobotomized.

 

[MikeAnderson]

Yep, there's my good old country, on the tracks of anti-intellectualism! The study should have trashed if they started out with this:

"set out to measure how identifying a text as science fiction makes readers automatically assume it is less worthwhile"

They embedded an assumption into their hypothesis. That's a big no no in the scientific community!

Yeah this "research" reeks of confirmation bias.

 

[MikeAnderson]

My eyes would gloss over too if I was taken out of my comfort zone and forced to read a Harlequin romance.

Being coerced into that would be a violation of the Geneva Convention, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[BAYLOR]

Oh @Danny McG boy,now you've gone an done it.
Created the infinite loop.

Like the scientists in 1964 film The Time Travelers ,were doomed to go round and round !

 

[TomMazanec]

Might be interesting to compare same story but with laser replacing revolver, greenskin replacing redskin, space shuttle replacing horse...