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CrowdScience: What’s the difference between reading and listening to books?

Discussion & Talk

What’s the difference between reading and listening to books?

24/11/2023 GMT

BBC World Service - CrowdScience, What’s the difference between reading and listening to books?

Why our brains respond differently if we listen to books instead of reading them

Why our brains respond differently if we listen to books instead of reading them.

CrowdScience listener Michael wants to know whether the brain responds differently if we listen to books instead of reading them. Do we retain information in the same way? And is there a difference between fiction and non-fiction? 

Anand Jagatia finds out whether curling up with a good book is better than putting on his headphones. She is speaks to Prof Fatma Deniz from the Technical University of Berlin; Prof Naomi Baron from American University, Washington DC; Prof Patrick Nunn from the University of Sunshine Coast, Queensland and The Guesthouse Storytellers.

Presenter: Anand Jagatia 
Producer: Jo Glanville 
Editor: Richard Collings 
Production co-ordinator: Jonathan Harrison 
Sound engineer: Andrew Garratt

(Photo: Senior man wearing headphones listening to an audiobook. Credit: pixdeluxe/Getty Images)

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