How literature stimulates the brain.

-Research by Nicola Molinaro scientist has been published in the journal NeuroImage, one of the most prestigious in the study of brain

-the study demonstrates that the oxymoron generate an intense activity in the left frontal area of the brain, an effort which has not been detected with neutral or incorrect expressions

San Sebastián, January 2012.- politicians in his speeches, the generals in their harangues and lovers in his poems have been used since time immemorial rhetorical figures to persuade, give value or seduce. The power of the words skillfully combined is known from the classical Greece. However, now has been empirically measure the ability of a literary figure to generate brain activity in people.

According to the dictionary of the Spanish Royal Academy of language, an oxymoron is a combination in the same syntactic structure of two words or expressions of opposite meaning giving rise to a new meaning, for example, white night or living dead. Researcher Nicola Molinaro donostiarra Center Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language, BCBL has shown that the oxymoron generates an intense brain activity in the left frontal area of the brain, an activity which does not occur when it comes to a neutral expression or incorrect.

Research shows success at the rhetorical level of literary figures. The reason for its effectiveness is that they attract the attention of the listener. It is reactivated the front part of the brain and more resources are used in the brain process of the term ”, points Molinaro, for whom the results of the experiments is about with activity that requires processing the abstraction of figures of speech as the oxymoron, who try to communicate things that aren’t there ”.

The discovery has been published in the journal NeuroImage, one of the most prestigious headers in this field, with the particularity that the investigation of Molinaro has not needed images so that their work is accepted, something unusual in this publication, since the pilot phase has been implemented through EEG.

Nicola Molinaro

the work of Molinaro is part of one of the major areas of study of the BCBL: language. At its facilities in San Sebastian, among other fields related to the investigation of the brain, the Centre studied many aspects of the relationship between cognition and language, such as learning, bilingualism or cognitive problems associated with the language.

The oxymoron

Among all the rhetorical figures, Molinaro chose the oxymoron because it’s a very simple formula, which can be constructed with only two words and it is therefore easier to accurately measure the brain activity that generate, in comparison with other figures, as metaphors, that complexity presented more difficulties in their measurement.

The Italian scientist who worked on this research in collaboration with its partner in the BCBL, Jon Andoni Duñabeitia, and the director of the Centre, Manuel Carreiras, devised several lists of phrases incorrect, neutral, oxymoron and pleonasmos, using the same noun as a subject. For example: geographical monster, as incorrect expression; solo monster, as a neutral expression; beautiful monster, as oxymoron; and horrible monster, such as pleonasm (unnecessary words which add expressiveness). Subsequently, they were these lists to people aged between 18 and 25 years and measured their brain activity when they processed them through the electroencephalogram.

Research results show that the less natural is the expression more resources it requires to be processed in the left front side of the brain ”, ensures Molinaro. The lone neutral, Monster phrase is that fewer brain resources need to be processed. With regard to the incorrect expression, geographical monster, 400 milliseconds after perceive it, the brain reacts to detect that there is an error.

However, in the case of the oxymoron as beautiful Monster 500 milliseconds after perceiving the expression was measured an intense brain activity in the left front side of the brain, a closely related language that humans have highly developed compared to other species. In the case of the pleonasm, Monster horrible, measured one activity greater than in the neutral expression, but less than in the case of the oxymoron.

Once checked the success of the investigation, the BCBL has decided to extend the study of this field. Molinaro has already begun to repeat this experiment with magnetic resonance imaging, to obtain images of brain activity when processed figures of speech. The aim is to study the connections between two areas very involved in the processing of meaning: the hippocampus, an internal part of the brain, and the left frontal area.

On the BCBL

The Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL), is an International Centre for interdisciplinary research based in San Sebastián for the study of cognition, brain and language promoted by the Basque Government to promote science and research in the Basque country. The Centre, which is counted among the BERC (Basque Excellence Research Center), has among its partners Ikerbasque, Innobasque, the provincial Council of Gipuzkoa and the University of the Basque country.