Where Storytelling and Data Meet
As Nietzsche said there are no facts only interpretations
Why is it that 2 hours at the cinema is a pleasure, but 2 hours watching PowerPoint is torture?
Frankly, it’s down to neuroscience. Data alone only activates two areas of the brain: Wernicke’s area, which deals with language comprehension, and Broca’s area which handles language processing. By implication, data is literally in one ear and out the other.
However, when the brain processes stories it has an entirely different experience. Unlike data, we don’t passively consume a story. We experience it as if it were happening to us and multiple regions of the brain are activated simultaneously.
A series of studies looking at how your brain reacts to fiction confirms what has long been suspected. Becoming involved in a story enables the brain to go through what is happening to the characters — the good, the bad and the ugly.
On that note, when people watching the Clint Eastwood film “The Good, the Bad and the Ugly” had a simultaneous fMRI, the results showed one thing — the emotions of the participants uncannily mirrored the emotions of the characters on the screen.
So, does this mean you have to re-enact a cowboy western at your next quarterly meeting? Probably not, although a few members of my team would…
