In this article, we will discuss memory and understanding of reading.
Do you read？If you are reading this blog, you may be reading on a daily basis, but if you want to start or continue reading, you may not know what books to read.
I also read, but I don't want to read books that I don't understand or can't relate to, so there may be times when you don't want to read because the genre of the book doesn't match your level of understanding.
What genres are good for reading?
I would like to introduce a study that is related to this question.
The study
This is a review of 689 articles that were studied for their summaries and relevance, and 93 articles that were studied for their details.
A total of 33,078 people were studied, and individual effect sizes were compiled from 78 different samples.
Briefly, the question is: Do different types of text affect our memory and comprehension? This is about whether people remember and understand different types of text.
Is a narrative form of writing better? Is a narrative style of writing better, or is a commentary style (such as a technical book) better? That's the question.
As it turns out, narrative texts have more significant results in terms of memory and comprehension.
Why is a story better?
It is believed that stories are familiar from human memory and history.
Originally, oral storytelling was one of the means of communication, and has been used since ancient times as a means of communicating information necessary for survival and information about our ancestors.
From this, we can see that reading stories is familiar to human emotions, history and memory, which means that reading text in narrative form has brought significance to memory and comprehension.
If you think back, most of the reading materials we read in childhood are narrative texts, and as we grow older, we read more explanatory texts.
This difference in the timing of exposure has also been considered to make it difficult for children to become familiar with explanatory texts.
Another reason why stories are more memorable is related to emotional capacity.
This is also known as "flashbulb memory," in which emotions such as attention and perception play an important role in stimulating memory.
This emotional aspect of memory recall has led to the idea that narratives are easier to remember than expository text.
Mar, R.A., Li, J., Nguyen, A.T.P. et al. Memory and comprehension of narrative versus expository texts: A meta-analysis. Psychon Bull Rev (2021). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-020-01853-1
Conclusion
For people who are unfamiliar with books or who dislike reading, books that tell a story are more likely to be remembered.
Depending on the genre of the book you have read, the amount of time you have read it, and so on, you may find that books like commentaries and technical books are more memorable.
This point may depend on the person, but I can understand why manga style books are adopted for books for beginners, and why they are popular to some extent.
