Reading Kafka Improves Learning

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/09/090915174455.htm

Reading Kafka Improves Learning, Suggests Psychology Study

ScienceDaily (Sep. 16, 2009) — Reading a book by Franz Kafka –– or watching a film by director David Lynch –– could make you smarter.

According to research by psychologists at UC Santa Barbara and the University of British Columbia, exposure to the surrealism in, say, Kafka's "The Country Doctor" or Lynch's "Blue Velvet" enhances the cognitive mechanisms that oversee implicit learning functions. The researchers' findings appear in an article published in the September issue of the journal Psychological Science.

"The idea is that when you're exposed to a meaning threat –– something that fundamentally does not make sense –– your brain is going to respond by looking for some other kind of structure within your environment," said Travis Proulx, a postdoctoral researcher at UCSB and co-author of the article. "And, it turns out, that structure can be completely unrelated to the meaning threat."

Meaning, according to Proulx, is an expected association within one's environment. Fire, for example, is associated with extreme heat, and putting your hand in a flame and finding it icy cold would constitute a threat to that meaning. "It would be very disturbing to you because it wouldn't make sense," he said.

As part of their research, Proulx and Steven J. Heine, a professor of psychology at the University of British Columbia and the article's second co-author, asked a group of subjects to read an abridged and slightly edited version of Kafka's "The Country Doctor," which involves a nonsensical –– and in some ways disturbing –– series of events. A second group read a different version of the same short story, one that had been rewritten so that the plot and literary elements made sense. The subjects were then asked to complete an artificial-grammar learning task in which they were exposed to hidden patterns in letter strings. They were asked to copy the individual letter strings and then to put a mark next to those that followed a similar pattern.

"People who read the nonsensical story checked off more letter strings –– clearly they were motivated to find structure," said Proulx. "But what's more important is that they were actually more accurate than those who read the more normal version of the story. They really did learn the pattern better than the other participants did."

In a second study, the same results were evident among people who were led to feel alienated about themselves as they considered how their past actions were often contradictory. "You get the same pattern of effects whether you're reading Kafka or experiencing a breakdown in your sense of identity," Proulx explained. "People feel uncomfortable when their expected associations are violated, and that creates an unconscious desire to make sense of their surroundings. That feeling of discomfort may come from a surreal story, or from contemplating their own contradictory behaviors, but either way, people want to get rid of it. So they're motivated to learn new patterns."

Thus far, the researchers have identified the beneficial effects of unusual experiences only in implicit pattern learning. It remains to be seen whether or not reading surreal literature would aid in the learning of studied material as well. "It's important to note that sitting down with a Kafka story before exam time probably wouldn't boost your performance on a test," said Proulx.

"What is critical here is that our participants were not expecting to encounter this bizarre story," he continued. "If you expect that you'll encounter something strange or out of the ordinary, you won't experience the same sense of alienation. You may be disturbed by it, but you won't show the same learning ability. The key to our study is that our participants were surprised by the series of unexpected events, and they had no way to make sense of them. Hence, they strived to make sense of something else."

Adapted from materials provided by University Of California, Santa Barbara.

Dark Night of the Soul

From BookSoup.com:

Dark Night of the Soul
by Danger Mouse & Sparklehouse & David Lynch

Musical visionary Danger Mouse, iconoclastic filmmaker David Lynch, and celebrated rock recluse Sparklehorse have converged to create Dark Night of the Soul, a project encompassing a new full-length album and limited edition book.

As half of the acclaimed duo Gnarls Barkley, Danger Mouse is no stranger to high-stakes collaborations. With the help of Sparklehorse, he has recruited a remarkable cast of contemporary artists to lend their vocals, including the Flaming Lips, Black Francis of the Pixies, Julian Casablancas of the Strokes, James Mercer of the Shins, Jason Lytle of Grandaddy, Gruff Rhys of Super Furry Animals, Nina Persson of the Cardigans, cryptic Southern songwriter Vic Chesnutt, avant-folk icon Suzanne Vega, punk titan Iggy Pop, and even Lynch himself.

To create the images that accompany the music, Danger Mouse chose David Lynch. Known for revealing the gripping horror beneath suburban banality, Lynch crafts eerie beauty from the most irregular of elements. For Dark Night of the Soul, the creator of Twin Peaks, Inland Empire, Blue Velvet, and Eraserhead, delivers a gorgeous, hypnotic series of photographs.

This captivating project explores and escapes the reality of the world. The book package includes the full sequence of Lynch's images, a foreword by Danger Mouse, selected lyrics, and an art-printed CD-R, in a run of only 5000 copies, each individually numbered. For Legal Reasons, enclosed CD-R contains no music. Use it as you will.