Reading - Audio vs. Visual Camy Brown

Reading - Audio vs. Visual

Camy Brown

Both reading and listening provide advantages to comprehension and the processing of semantics while maintaining certain differences. Audiobooks allow the listener to interpret information more clearly through the speaker’s inflections and intonations. Reading print improves the reader’s memory of the information and provides the ability to annotate and reread texts. Despite both their advantages, studies show that visual reading increases comprehension of expository texts significantly compared to listening (Daniel et al. 2010). In an experiment at UC Berkeley brain scans from a group of nine people, after reading and listening to the same stories, concluded that the same cognitive and emotional areas of the brain were stimulated during visual reading and listening (Deniz et al. 2019). The information obtained from these results can improve the future of people with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.