Comments on: Study: The Brains of Storytellers And Their Listeners Actually Sync Up

By: Pravin Yadav

Pravin Yadav — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 08:04:32 +0000

Storytelling is basically a form of performing art. It can be very well explained using physics.There are 3 interrelated chained phenomena- Transmission (Performer),Absorption (audience) and Reflection (Emotional response). I don’t have to explain it in detail.
Bulb illuminates when the circuit is complete. Live response from audience challenges and boosts artist’s creativity. Because of the same reason, it is often observed that artist excels and exhibits unplanned ultimate performance in live concerts rather than in practice sessions. That’s how audience becomes an integral part of artist’s creativity.

By: Carole Brooks Platt, Ph.D.

Carole Brooks Platt, Ph.D. — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 16:49:08 +0000

I used to do an activity in my advanced French classes where I would play evocative music, like Erik Satie’s Gymnopédie, and pass a sheet of paper around the room. The students would create a Surrealist poem, folding the paper over their line without seeing the one that came before. The interesting thing is that a poem would appear that had real coherence, even thematically. I’m sure the music was a large part of the neural spur, but group synchronization was indeed happening.

I also believe that synchronization between the cerebral hemispheres creates a trance state and that people engaging in automatic behaviors like séances and Ouija boards get into sync with each other and can make telepathic connections. I am writing a book on this and have articles accessible on my Web site, with further information in my blog posts rightmindmatters.blogspot.com.

By: laura simms

laura simms — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 23:38:32 +0000

it is my experience that when a story begins there is an engagement occurring beneath logic where mind functions on a multiplicity of levels simoultaneously and the actual listening is not conceptual but in total visceral, imaginative response.. akin to meditation states.. wide awake, thinking and feeling, and imagining .. and this engagement allows for access to deeper levels of unconditional mind .. I think that is why it is as if we are both audience and listener bonded in such a unique way.. the more unbiased and present the storyteller, not forcing a point or involved in explanation – the more this more natural state of awareness is experienced.. so satisfying. Telling stories in the tents in haiti to women who arrived depleted and depressed .. I watched them come alive like wilted flowers taking water.. but here it felt like being self nourished by not having to focus on personal loops of fixed mental narrative.. as if they were moisturized by life force.. distracted beautifully from concerns to be fully engaged.. it is as Lee Ellen Marvin said an experience. It is also reciprocal dynamic. not only do audiences often breathe together, but there is a very settled sense of deep listening as if silence arose from within.

By: Cheryl

Cheryl — Sat, 21 Aug 2010 07:22:48 +0000

I can only imagine similar results would be found if a study were done of the brains of people playing Pass-Around Storytelling: The Shared Storytelling Game (http://www.passaroundthemagic.com). Pass-Around Storytelling is a shared improvisational storytelling game. There is a visceral experience of deep connection when two or more players work as a team to build an original oral story together. This creative sync is referred to as a the “magic” of collaborative storytelling by the creators of the game — Cheryl Chitayat, a Psychologist and Dafna Soltes Stein, an Artist-Educator. They are known to say, “Pass-Around the Magic with Pass-Around Storytelling” and “When you touch the magic you know it!” Perhaps part of this magic is the feeling of our brains aligning!

By: Carol

Carol — Sat, 07 Aug 2010 23:31:53 +0000

It would be interesting to perform this same experiment with presumed ADA “listeners” as well as “listeners” diagnosed with any of the various levels on the Autism spectrum.

By: Kendall Haven

Kendall Haven — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 20:55:57 +0000

This is not overly surprising. The research studies I have pieced together establish quite compellingly that humans are evolutionarily hardwired to think, to make sense, to understand, and to remember and recall all in specific story terms—terms defined by the regions and purposes of those specific brian regions linked in that neural story net. We humans process incoming experiential or narrative information by running it through that story net en route from sensory organ to frontal lobes (the conscious mind). This study confirms that this neural story net activates both for teller (the one recalling the story from memory) and the receiver (the one processing the story and prepping it for placement into memory). It is fascinating to me that a cornucopia of hard science supports the contention that storytellers have made for hundreds of years: humans listen to, receive, and process information delivered in story form differently (and more deeply) than they do to the same information delivered through any other narrative structure.

By: Norah

Norah — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:46:40 +0000

We storytellers often describe a successful performance by saying that our audience was “entranced” by our story. After a storytelling performance in a school, I sometimes have the opportunity to break it down for students. Explaining what just occurred, I might say, “I used words to transmit the images in my mind and you received my words and turned them into images, feelings and experience in your minds.” I tell students this is the magic of language and story. “Our heads are connected – like wifi ! Only without the computers, iPhones, modems and DSL.” It seems that brain imaging shows my wifi metaphor to be less metaphoric and more a scientific description of the actual process, than I knew.

People at our story slams ( http://massmouth.com) find it hard to describe their experience of listening to stories – but they know something primordial and essentially human has been shared.
It is not the same on video, but you can get an idea of the experience here: http://massmouth.ning.com/video

By: Umi Sinha

Umi Sinha — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 11:41:13 +0000

Eric Says:
July 28th, 2010 at 8:29 am

I have done an exercise in corporate storytelling courses where each person takes it in turn to come into the group, in a pretended office situation, and change the mood, e.g. ‘Just heard there are going to be some redundancies,’ followed by “Hey guys, we’ve won the contract”, followed by ‘Some bad news guys. Reenu’s husband died yesterday,’ etc. It’s extraordinary to see how fast (literally seconds) the group mood changes and I wouldn’t be at all surprised if exactly this was happening in mob hysteria situations.

By: Diana Ravagli

Diana Ravagli — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 00:51:21 +0000

It amazes me to hear that finaly we’re at a point where this can be scientifically proven. To me it seams obvious because any time a person places attention onto someone whether it be a story or a play, he/she is wanting to create a personal relation to it and for that an internal representation is needed, thus prompting the brain to be stimulated in those places. In the process though, the variables would be the intention of the person meaning: in going to a play, someone can be seeing it from a place of witnessing, so little personal investment, hence less mental involvement; however if the same person sees the play from a “pretend it’s me” a more personal involvement, the likelihood of the same brain patterns would emerge, even the same muscles fire up.
We’ve come to a point where science keeps pointing us in the direction of intention; it’s all a matter of where and how we focus our attention which is where creation is sparked!

By: Kat Jaibur

Kat Jaibur — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:23:37 +0000

Yay. Science is proving what storytellers have always known. For some great stories, ad lib: http://themoth.prx.org/ One of my favorites: This one by Alan Rabinowitz. http://bit.ly/cbdObx