A Study on Minds and Reading
In 8th grade, my best friend and I came across this particular photo on Instagram.
The post asked the viewer to first imagine an apple in their head, then come back to the photo and describe which option on the screen fit more with what they saw in their head. I chose Option 1, seeing the most realistic version of an apple in my mind as if it were directly in front of me. My best friend, on the other hand, chose Option 4. As a 13-year-old, this particular difference between us was extremely interesting but at that time, I hadn’t yet discovered my passion for psychology. Because of this, I forgot about this picture entirely.
A couple weeks ago, I came across this photo once again and the memories from 4 years ago flooded back. Simultaneously, I was having discussions with my best friend about what types of books we liked to read. I tend to lean more towards fantasy books, as I can see a “movie” in my head as I read a story. My best friend said the exact opposite, because as he couldn’t see those images in his mind, he tended to stay away from fantasy. Succinctly, this led to a discussion about what types of books he did like to read and if his lack of ability to imagine these realistic pictures impacted the genres he leaned towards.
So, out of curiosity, I decided to conduct a survey to send to family and friends. The picture of the apples was attached, asking the exact question that was in the previous Instagram post, as well as my own unique questions. These included:
Do you like reading relatively often?
When you do read, do you tend to read more fiction or nonfiction?
What subsection of said genre would you say you read the most? For example, fantasy, romance, sci-fi, self-help, marketing, etc.
Now, my pool of people who filled out the survey was rather scattered and small, although most of those were teenagers. In this case, my results don’t provide evidence of a unique finding, but I purely conducted this out of curiosity.
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Apple Question
Out of the 19 people who filled out the survey, 73.7% chose Option 1, 21.1% chose Option 2, and 5.3% chose Option 4. My initial observations were that a lot more people selected Option 1 than I had originally expected, which was a pleasant surprise. Also, every person that chose either Option 2 or Option 4 was male. Every single female that filled out this survey chose Option 1.
Do you enjoy reading relatively often? When you do read, do you tend to read more fiction or nonfiction?
About ⅔ of those that chose Option 1 said that they did enjoy reading, and only 2 people in that group said that they preferred nonfiction over fiction. It was a 50/50 split between those that chose Option 2 whether or not they enjoyed reading but regardless, all of them preferred to read fiction whenever they did pick up a book. The person who chose Option 4 said that they did enjoy reading and preferred to read fiction.
What subsection of said genre would you say you read the most?
The general consensus amongst those who chose Option 1 was that they preferred to read fantasy, mystery/thriller, and literary fiction. The 2 amongst the group that chose nonfiction said that they enjoyed reading history and self-help books. For those that chose Option 2 and Option 4, they said they tended to select mystery and literary/historical fiction. I did notice that nobody within those groups said fantasy.
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After the survey had been conducted and closed, I had a discussion with some of the people that had chosen Option 1. These girls said they could, in fact, see a “movie” play out in their head when they read and each of them said that they tended to be more imaginative as a whole. Although this survey could have been revised with probably more specific questions to generate stronger “findings”, I still found it to be a fun, thought-provoking, and compelling study. I still have so much to learn about the world of psychology (as well as how to conduct a proper “experiment”) but I hope to do more like this soon.