TV out, audiobooks in! Study claims listening to books more engaging

If you’re the kind of person who’s ever argued that a book is better than the film or vice vera, a new study has seemingly put an end to the debate once and for all.

Listening to audiobooks has been proven to be more emotionally engaging than watching a film or television study, according to research by the University College London. Working in collaboration with Audible, which is one of the world’s biggest brands in terms of spoken word entertainment, research tested scenes from a wide range of well-known stories.

No genre was left unturned, with crime, sci-fi, fantasy, action and classical genres being tested on 103 participants aged between 18 and 67. The purpose was to test the physiological impact of auditory and storytelling mediums.

Researchers discovered participants had a stronger emotional and physiological response when listening to a story, rather than watching it play out on screens in front of them. The results also found there was no difference when it came to the different genres of stories or between younger and older demographics.

The study used segments from a range of popular titles that are both books and film or television series including Pride and Prejudice, The Silence of the Lambs, The Da Vinci Code and Baskervilles. Each scene played to participants was tested on emotional intensity, comparative length and similarity in terms of the storyline between what people were listening to on audiobook and watching on screens. The conscious responses were then tracked, while heart rare and electrodermal activity was reordered. According to the study, these physiological signals reveal cognitive processing and sub-conscious emotional arousal in the brain.

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“Listening to a story on Audible produced greater emotional and physiological engagement than watching the scene on a screen, as measured by both heart rate and electro-dermal activity,” lead researcher Joseph Devlin said in a statement. “Though participants surveyed assumed they were less engaged, the biometric sensors indicate otherwise. Having concluded the first phase of our multi-stage study with Audible, it seems as though the heart really does tell the story.”

The study found audiobook listeners produced stronger emotional and physiological responses than when they watched a TV show or movie. Participants’ average heart rate was higher by two beats per minute when listening to a story. This implied that the increased heart rate, body temperature and skin conductance meant participants were engaged emotionally and physiologically more when listening to an audiobook.

Furthermore, the research showed audiobooks allowed participants to produce more consistent patterns of physiological change when listening, with researchers concluding authors may have better control of the emotional responses of their listeners.

What do you think? Do you like listening to audiobooks? Do you think they tell a story better than watching a movie or a TV show?