Is listening to an audio-book less intellectually stimulating than reading the same book?

December 18, 2005 8:47 PM

Is listening to an audio-book less intellectually stimulating than reading the same book, especially in terms of literacy and increasing vocabulary?
posted by nthdegx to Education (19 answers total)

I find it's a different experience, no less valuable. Hearing the text read by a good actor can be a real pleasure. For me it slows the experience down, and I savor the details.
posted by mert at 8:51 PM on December 18, 2005

Best answer: I work in a bookstore that also rents audiobooks and this question comes up regularly. I think mert's right; the two experiences are both intellectually stimulating, but in (slightly?) different ways. It's impossible to say one method of absorbing a book is more or less "intellectual" than the other. My boss Christine felt her experience of The Kite Runner, for instance, was enriched dramatically by hearing the *sound* of the place names and other proper nouns. Audiobooks can also be placed in the larger context of the grand oral storytelling tradition in human history, with all its attendent benefits to memory and imagination.

This NYTimes piece from a few months back - "Loud, Proud, Unabridged: It Is Too Reading!" - offers a brief overview of the issues involved.
posted by mediareport at 9:00 PM on December 18, 2005 [1 favorite]

One more tangential bit that blurs the line between reading and listening to speech in fascinating ways: subvocalization, in which the tongue and throat receive (decipherable!) nerve signals from the brain during reading.
posted by mediareport at 9:09 PM on December 18, 2005

I suggest it depends on your preferred mode of learning. Like mert, I love listening to a good novel (I can listen to Frank Muller reading Ross Thomas' Briarpatch, The Eighth Dwarf, or Missionary Stew over and over. But I digress.)

I need to see and read the text, however, if I'm to master unfamiliar, difficult material, eg. I found listening to philosophy lectures extremely frustrating, and gave it up.
posted by mojohand at 9:09 PM on December 18, 2005

Reading is better, I think, but the audiobook experience can deliver things that reading cannot. For example you can read Hamlet a thousand times but still be surprised by someone's reading of "words, words, words." On the other hand to really get a book I think you need to read it and have it in your own internal voice to really experience a benefit to yer intellectuals, so: yes.
posted by fleacircus at 9:29 PM on December 18, 2005

Yeah, but Hamlet was meant to be read outloud; it's a play.

The general answer to the original question is "Yes".
posted by orthogonality at 9:40 PM on December 18, 2005 [1 favorite]

You definitely learn different things, so I guess it depends if things like your pronunciation or things like your spelling needs the most improvement :-).

Reading is much quicker though, so you could probably absorb two books by reading in the time it takes to listen to one. Or absorb the book and have that time to mull it over without the distraction of still listening to it.
posted by -harlequin- at 10:04 PM on December 18, 2005

Yes, because the voice actor adds another dimension which shifts the balance away from intellectual stimulation and more towards entertainment - rather than thinking for yourself you are being led into thinking thoughts implied by the voice.
posted by forallmankind at 10:09 PM on December 18, 2005

For me, listening to someone else read a book is like watching porn. Sure it's fun, but it'd be way better to do it yourself.
posted by kindall at 10:20 PM on December 18, 2005

I think of audio books as being something slightly apart from the experience of reading. You're somewhat trapped by the interpretation of the characters given by the narrator - I've listened to audio books and thought `hey, that's not what that guy sounds like'.

I like audio books for being available when I'm doing something which prevents me from reading - driving, physical labour at work, housework, out walking - anything where my brain is not really engaged entirely.

Also, listening to audio books has changed the way I read. I used to skim books somewhat, but now I speak them inside my head, and take time with them more, sounding out the voices of the characters and not jumping paragraphs here and there.

Recently I was complimented on my voice when I read something out loud, saying it was very expressive. I don't have a particularly rich or deep voice, but I make good use of tone, which is something I think has improved since I started listening to a lot of books.

Finally to reiterate Mojohand's point, I find heavy works such as classical literature where the language may need more analysis than normal, or lectures, are almost impossible to absorb properly unless I can sit down quietly and pay attention. I listened to half of an audio lecture on classical music before I realised I was barely absorbing it.
posted by tomble at 10:50 PM on December 18, 2005

I would argue that the answer to the original question is yes. Listening can be a passive thing, reading almost never is.
posted by Monday at 12:59 AM on December 19, 2005

Listening can be a passive thing, reading almost never is.

I disagree. You can read without really paying attention to what you are reading, and to me it's very hard to hear something without actively listening. I suppose the answer to your question, nthdegx, is that it depends on the individual and how they best learn (I'm a very aural learner, so naturally listening is bound to be more stimulating to me).

Something magical happens to language when it's spoken out loud, it becomes a kind of music. Even prose can seem to develop new meanings, which one wonders if the author necessarily intended.

I like reading out loud, and occasionally find someone who wants to (or at least doesn't mind to) listen to me read out loud. I feel like it's quite a personal and beautiful experience to share a good book with someone this way.

However, just to be contrary, I do agree with others upthread who suggest that difficult reading material is best analysed in the written form.
posted by ancamp at 4:01 AM on December 19, 2005

I find audio-books generally more demanding unless they're extremely captivating and the speaker has an interesting voice. Otherwise it's way too easy to daydream, and I have to keep rewinding the darn thing. You don't have this problem with books.
posted by wackybrit at 5:31 AM on December 19, 2005

Best answer: I'd just point out that this is part of a much larger debate about the difference between oral and literate cultures. Walter Ong's book Orality and Literacy does a good job of laying out some of the issues involved.
posted by OmieWise at 6:41 AM on December 19, 2005

I recall being told that your brain 'works harder' when you listen to the radio than when you read (or watch TV). This was thought to be because visual sensory input is accepted with less processeing than auditory sensory input, that perhaps the brain invests some resources in 'imagining' a minds-eye visual companion to the audio.

Whether that's a plus or a minus, I'm not so sure... but there you have it.
posted by onshi at 7:43 AM on December 19, 2005

I've just started listening to audio books and find the experience surprisingly different. For one thing, I laugh out loud at audio books, much the way I might at a television show or a movie. My reactions are actually stronger to them than to books that I read. I also get the full material from an audio book. I tend to skim lightly over description and such when I read books unless they're absolutely captivating books. No such skimming option with audio books.

On the other hand, I like creating my own sense of the world I'm reading about, which audiobooks take away from a lot. The voices, especially the annoying attempts at accents, really detract from world building.
posted by jacquilynne at 8:45 AM on December 19, 2005

You can read without really paying attention to what you are reading, and to me it's very hard to hear something without actively listening.

Just the opposite, for me. Years of having to ignore co-workers holding technical discussions at the whiteboard right behind me have given me the ability to tune out almost anything, and I sometimes do so out of habit if the speech isn't vital to me.

On the other hand, if there's something with writing on it in front of me, I am nearly compelled to give it my full attention.
posted by kindall at 9:22 AM on December 19, 2005

just remember some people are more visual learners and some are more auditory learners. for me its really just more entertaining and engaging than anything i can do while the bus to class.
posted by chuckforthought.com at 10:30 AM on December 19, 2005

the data rate is lower with audio books - typically you read a lot slower than someone speaks. so if you just look at how much information your brain has to deal with per minute, it's higher for reading.

(i'm pretty sure this was discussed before somewhere here, incidentally).
posted by andrew cooke at 12:20 PM on December 19, 2005