The Glasers
  • Courses
    • All Courses
    • BreakThrough Conflict
    • Hardwiring Teamwork
    • Persuasion & Influence
  • Ways To Learn
  • Trainer Training
  • Results And Impact
    • Results
    • Impact
  • About Us
    • Meet The Glasers
    • Meet The Team
  • Contact

This is Your Brain on Stories

6/7/2016

6 Comments

 
Picture
We’ve heard a lot lately about the power of stories, and about how the content of a good story stays with listeners more than any other type of information (e.g. facts, statistics, or even analogies). Now scientists are beginning to understand why.

 
According to a recent New York Times article, scientists recently mapped the experience of listening to podcasts, (specifically NPR’s “The Moth Radio Hour”) using a scanner to track brain activity. They laid out a detailed map of the brain as it absorbed and responded to each story: “Widely dispersed sensory, emotional and memory networks were humming, across both hemispheres of the brain; no story was ‘contained’ in any one part of the brain, as some textbooks have suggested.”

The researchers broke the stories into units of meaning—e.g. social elements, locations and emotions—and found that these concepts fell into 12 categories that tended to cause activation in the same parts of people’s brains at the same points throughout the stories. They then retested that model by seeing how it predicted M.R.I. activity while the volunteers listened to another Moth story. The “kaleidoscope of activation” explains why any of us can get so utterly entranced by a good tale that time flies as we listen to it—yet we remember it long after.


We want to hear: Have you ever felt completely engrossed when listening to a good story? Do you use stories in your business life, and do you have a favorite you’d like to share? To join the conversation, click "comments" on our Community of Practice Forum.
 
If you would like to read more about creating a habit around masterful communication, check out our book: Be Quiet, Be Heard: The Paradox of Persuasion

6 Comments
Buzz Stapczynski
6/7/2016 09:46:29 am

From what I have read the master story teller was Abraham Lincoln. Whether it was a homespun tail or biblical story, he was famous for using stories to disarm, persuade or illustrate his points.

Reply
susan
6/7/2016 09:58:40 am

So true, Buzz. Lincoln was a master story teller. Perhaps this is partly the cause of his persona living through time. Stories are what we remember when we forget all else.

Reply
Paul Schlobohm
6/8/2016 10:49:46 am

Sometimes a colleague will ask me a question (How did the meeting go?) for which he was anticipating a relatively short response (Great! or Boring!) and without realizing it I'll find myself going on and on ... telling a story instead of making a statement....because the nuances of the answer are important to me. Then he'll say I did it again and we'll have a good chuckle.

Reply
susan
6/8/2016 12:52:25 pm

Thanks for this Paul. Often a story gets greater nuance in fewer words. We have noticed that without a story people need more words to keep trying to explain an abstract idea that would have been captured more eloquently in a story.

Reply
Thomas
6/14/2016 11:02:18 am

I tell stories to staff all the time. They usually roll their eyes when I do. But I like the way a story diffuses an intense situation and makes employees use their own ideas to find the solution or path to a solution. Also like Jesus taught in parables some people got it and others didn't. This lets me sift through employees to find who is worth investing in based off of their response to a story. Do they say, "Ok, nice story, but what are you going to do about...?" or do the say, "I see, maybe I can go and do..."

Reply
susan
6/14/2016 06:19:08 pm

No doubt that stories are powerful, Thomas. Harder to be sure that the intent of our story has the impact we want on the person who hears it!

Reply

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Sign Up for Our
    Weekly Communication
    Capsule Blog

    * indicates required

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    April 2025
    March 2025
    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    November 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    August 2024
    July 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    April 2024
    March 2024
    February 2024
    January 2024
    December 2023
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    July 2023
    June 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013

    Categories

    All
    BreakThrough Conflict
    Children & Young Adult
    Communication
    Community Of Practice
    Hardwiring Teamwork
    Leadership
    Persuasion And Influence

​Communication Capsule Blog
Press/Media Resources
​Learning Products
Organizational Culture Survey
III Survey

Glaser & Associates, Inc.
Executive Offices
1740 Craigmont Avenue, Eugene, OR 97405
541-343-7575 | 800-980-0321
[email protected]
Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions
© 2019 Glaser & Associates.  All Rights Reserved.
  • Courses
    • All Courses
    • BreakThrough Conflict
    • Hardwiring Teamwork
    • Persuasion & Influence
  • Ways To Learn
  • Trainer Training
  • Results And Impact
    • Results
    • Impact
  • About Us
    • Meet The Glasers
    • Meet The Team
  • Contact