Peripherally related to the discussion Kasey Mohammad and I had in comments a few days ago, I found these pieces (here and here) on language and the brain at Human Nature Daily.
The first reports that the motor cortex of readers is involved in the interpretation of action verbs, which literally get the blood flowing, involving more parts of the brain:
For instance, reading the word lick triggers pronounced blood flow in sites of the motor cortex associated with tongue and mouth movements.…
"Brain areas that are used to perform an action are also needed to comprehend words related to that action," Victor de Lafuente and Ranulfo Romo of Mexico's National Autonomous University in Mexico City comment in an editorial in the [Jan. 22 Neuron]. "Remarkably, just the reading of feet-related action words such as dance makes [the motor cortex] move its 'feet.'"
The second is a more general review of recent work, but this passage got my attention:
Using fMRI Dr [Sophie] Scott has shown that the brain takes speech and separates it into words and "melody" - the varying intonation in speech that reveals mood, gender and so on. Her studies suggest words are then shunted over to the left temporal lobe for processing, while the melody is channelled to the right side of the brain, a region more stimulated by music.
There are reasons, rooted in our biological nature, for action and meter (or other rhythmic devices) to have a greater effect on readers than text lacking those features.
5:49:54 PM
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