Reading Franz Kafka can make us smarter, a new study from the University of British Columbia and the University of California reveals.
The key is in thesurrealismpresent in texts likeA rural doctor, written by Kafka in 1918. According to Travis Proulx, co-author of a study published in the journalPsychological Science, “themeaningof a thing is an expected association with our own environment. “Thus, for example, fire is associated with extreme heat, so putting your hand on a flame and suddenly feeling extreme cold would be a” threat “to the meaning of fire.bafflingWhy wouldn’t it make sense? explains Proulx. And that is the sensation caused by some texts by Frank Kafka.
To test its effects on the brain, Proulx and his colleagues asked a series of volunteers to read the story ofA rural doctor, in which crazy events take place, while other colleagues reada different version of the same storyrewritten so that everything made sense. Then agrammar exercise, which those who had read the real Kafka solved with better marks.
“People feel uncomfortable when the associations we expected are violated, and that creates an unconscious desire to make sense of what is around us.” That uncomfortable feeling may come from a surreal story and “prompts us tolearn new brain patterns, to develop a greater capacity for learning “, conclude the researchers.
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