Language
Do our brains read comic strips using a kind of grammar?
Open access · cc by · source: Europe PMC
Splitting one scene across two comic panels triggered a brain response linked to grammar-like processing that ignored meaning, and it was stronger in people who read lots of manga growing up.
Study at a glance
- Design
- Human experiment — 2x2 within-subject ERP experiment (conjunction vs non-conjunction panel structure x congruous vs incongruous character) with wordless Peanuts strips
- N
- N=28 · 28 self-described comic readers; all contributed to behavioural and ERP analyses
- Population
- Right-handed English-speaking university students at UC San Diego who read comics
- Outcome
- Comprehensibility ratings; ERP amplitudes (anterior negativity, P600) to the critical panel; relation to self-reported manga reading
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Key findings
Incongruous strips were rated less comprehensible, while conjunction and non-conjunction strips were rated similarly when the story was congruous. Conjunction panels produced an anterior negativity at 300-500 ms that was unaffected by whether the character fit the story, plus a later posterior positivity (P600) that was larger for both conjunctions and incongruities. How often participants read manga while growing up was the only background measure that predicted the size of the conjunction effect: frequent manga readers showed larger anterior negativities and smaller P600s.
Methodology
The researchers built 100 wordless Peanuts sequences in which two characters either appeared together in one panel or were split across two successive panels (a 'conjunction'), and in which the character in the critical panel either fit or did not fit the earlier story. 28 comic readers viewed the strips one panel at a time while EEG was recorded, and rated each strip as making sense or not. They also reported how often they had read different kinds of comics, including Japanese manga.
Limitations
The sample was small and consisted only of self-selected US student comic readers, and the individual-differences result rests on self-reported reading habits, so it is correlational: manga reading may be a proxy for other differences. The manga effect was one significant predictor among several tested, and the median split into frequent and infrequent readers was for illustration rather than a planned comparison. The study does not show that comic readers from Japan or non-readers would respond the same way, and ERP scalp effects cannot pinpoint which brain regions are involved.
How this study connects
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