Why does the brain prefer books on paper?

The human brain is capable of perceiving a text in its entirety, as if it were some kind of physical landscape. And it is that when we read, we are not only recreating a world with the words of the story, but we are building a mental representation of the text itself.

When flipping the pages of a paper book, we perform an activity similar to leaving a footprint after footprint down a path, there is a rhythm, cadence and a visible record in the process of the printed pages.

The prestigious Scientifican American magazine published an article that seeks to explain this paradox: in the era of hyperconnectivity, when we have more and more equipment that allow us to read more easily and have access to entire libraries in electronic format, many follow Preferring the format of paper.

The traditional book, the magazine, the newspaper, are still favorites of the general public. Although it’s hard to believe, digital formats open the doors to many freedoms.

Paper vs Pixels Many jobs talk about the screen reading slower and also remembering less. There’s “physicability” in reading, says Maryanne Wolf of Tufts University. People need to feel the paper when reading, the brain unconsciously asks for it.

We are not born with brain circuits dedicated to reading, because Scripture was invented relatively short time ago in our evolution: about four millennium BC.

In childhood, the brain improvises new circuits for reading and for that it uses part of others dedicated to speech, whose ability is added motor coordination and vision.

The brain begins to recognize letters based on curved lines and spaces, and uses tactile processes that require the eyes and hands. Reading circuits for 5-year-olds show activity when practicing handwriting, but not when writing letters on a keyboard.

Beyond treating individual letters as physical objects, the human brain can perceive a text as its entirety as a kind of physical landscape. When we read, we build a mental representation of the text.

The exact nature of such depictions remains clear, but some researchers believe that they are similar to a mental map we create of a terrain, such as mountains and cities, and of indoor physical spaces such as departments and offices.

In parallel, in most cases, paper books have a more obvious topography than the text on the screen. An open paper book presents two clearly defined domains: left and right pages and a total of eight corners in which one is oriented.

Turning the pages of a paper book is an activity similar to leaving footprint after footprint down a path, there is a rhythm and a visible record of the pages passing. All of these features allow you to form a coherent mental map of the text.

By contrast, most digital devices interfere with intuitive browsing of a text, and although e-readers (e-books) and tablets replicate the template of pages, these are ephemeral. Once you’re read, those pages fade.

“The implicit feeling of where you are in a physical book becomes more important than we thought,” says the Scientifican American article.

In a paper on text comprehension, when comparing pupils who read on paper with others who read a PDF text on screen, it was concluded that the former performed better.

Electronic ink reflects ambient light just like paper book ink, but computer screens, smartphones and tablets shine light directly into people’s faces and reading can cause visual fatigue, headaches and blurred vision.

It’s likely that the organization of new digital natives will create other neural networks that allow them to prefer electronics to paper, but in the meantime, today the rest of the population continues to prefer contact with historical leaves.

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