Neuroscientists discover previously unknown cognitive benefits of reading physical books

PsyPost

Mental Health

Social Psychology

Cognitive Science

Neuroscience

About

No Result

View All Result

Join

My Account

PsyPost

No Result

View All Result

Home

Exclusive

Cognitive Science

Neuroscientists discover previously unknown cognitive benefits of reading physical books

by<br>Eric W. Dolan

June 13, 2026

Reading Time: 5 mins read

Share on TwitterShare on Facebook

A new study published in the journal PLOS ONE provides evidence that reading comic books on physical paper helps the brain absorb and connect story details more easily than reading on a digital tablet. The findings suggest that physical books provide stable spatial and tactile cues that lower the brain’s workload when a reader tries to recall complex plot points later. This research offers fresh insights into how digital reading formats might subtly alter human reading comprehension and memory.

Reading a book involves a complex series of mental tasks. A reader must decode words, interpret pictures, and connect new information to what they already know. To do this efficiently, the human brain builds what scientists call a story schema. A story schema is an internal mental framework that helps a person organize characters, timelines, and spatial relationships as a narrative unfolds.

The physical format of a book might play a hidden role in constructing this mental framework. Scientists suspect that physical paper provides reliable sensory anchors, such as the thickness of the pages on either side of the binding and the fixed location of text on a page. These physical anchors might help the brain map out the narrative in a physical space. When reading on a digital screen, these sensory anchors are largely absent because the screen remains physically identical while the text simply changes.

The authors of the current study wanted to know if the cognitive effects of paper extend to reading visual narratives. They chose Japanese manga, which are comic books with rich visual and narrative structures, to see how different reading mediums affect brain activity.

Kuniyoshi L. Sakai, a professor in the Department of Basic Science at the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences at the University of Tokyo, explains that the study originated from an industry question. "This research project began with an inquiry from COAMIX INC., one of the major publishers of Japanese manga, whether we could investigate any values of paper books scientifically," Sakai said. "As a neuroscientist working on the human brain, especially on its language function, I decided to compare brain activation between paper and digital reading."

Free daily newsletter

To conduct the experiment, the researchers had to overcome a technical hurdle related to measuring brain activity. Magnetic resonance imaging scanners use powerful magnets to track blood flow in the brain, which provides a real-time map of neural activity.

"When comparing a paper book and an electronic tablet, we cannot bring the latter device into the scanning room, because the scanner is a huge magnet," Sakai said. "Then, I had an idea of scanning the brain after one’s reading a book on paper or tablet. This was a long shot, and the right results we obtained surprised us."

The researchers recruited 25 right-handed university students who were native Japanese speakers. The scientists used a popular manga series where each story is split into two halves. These halves depict the exact same events but from the different perspectives of a couple experiencing conflicting feelings. This unique format allowed the scientists to test how well readers integrate information across different viewpoints.

Google News Preferences

Add PsyPost to your preferred sources

Participants were randomly assigned to read the first half of a manga story on either a physical paper book or an electronic tablet. This reading took place in a normal room outside of the scanning machinery. The scientists ensured that both the paper book and the tablet were similar in physical size. They also used light meters to match the brightness of the room’s light reflecting off the paper with the backlight shining from the tablet.

After finishing the first half, the participants entered the scanner. While lying inside the machine, participants wore special digital goggles to read the second half of the story. During this reading phase, the participants periodically rated their empathy toward the characters on a four-point scale to ensure they were actively engaged with the plot.

Finally, while still inside the scanner, the participants answered multiple-choice questions about the story they had just finished. The scientists divided these questions into two distinct categories. Set one included questions that could be answered just by remembering the first half of the story. Set two contained more demanding questions that required the reader to combine...